Hobbit delayed by a year?

[Sauron the White]

Is it just coincidence that those who seem to take the most pleasure in hoping for a delay of the next Middle-earth films are also those who did not like the last three?

just asking....

there is are too much money to be made here for these films not to come to pass.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

there is are too much money to be made here for these films not to come to pass.

That's probably what Disney said when they got the option of co-producing the Narnia movies. First they were going to do all seven books, then it became a trilogy (LWW, PC & Dawn Treader), now they've bailed - because of diminishing returns. Don't assume there's money to be made in a Hobbit movie. You might want to check out the link in my post on the Compass & LotR comparison thread http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpos...&postcount=220

As far as successful franchises go, I suspect everyone 'in the know' would have included Narnia after the performance of LWW, alongside LotR....

EDIT Let's face it - if TH was a stand alone work, without the LotR connection, no studio would touch it at the moment - a movie about a midget who gets dragged off by a wizard & thirteen Dwarves & not a single female character in the whole story. And I suspect that without a major re-write & the introduction of some familiar faces it won't do the business. It's not been picked up for what it is in its own right, but purely as a way of getting LotR movie fans back into the cinemas - & most of them have a very clear about the kind of movie they want to see - & that's not the story Tolkien wrote...

[Nogrod]

I think they would love to do the Hobbit-movie just because of the money it would produce them. It's just that in this "post credit-crunch" -world no one is willing to invest anything on anything that doesn't materialise itself in a day or two. Let's forget the quartal economy: the truth of the financial markets is day by day now. So nothing that takes time gets invested in.

And that to be sure is the problem of our modern capitalism. The quartal economy was a bad thing but this Day-to-Day economy is even worse. So what happens to any project where you can't cash yourself out within a day? So if it was that the oil-firms were reluctant to invest in new refineries a year ago now the film companies are afraid to invest in movies. Both make weekly/quartal losses for future gains but in this climate no one wishes to take the risk as the investers are nervous for any signs of spending instead of gaining immediately...

[Tuor in Gondolin]

I'm rather curious why Disney turned down Narnia movies, since by the
records below it seems that the movie more then covered production costs
U.S. domestically and more then doubled expenses (including
worldwide) with PC. And this doesn't seem to include other revenue
sources (books, dvds, cable tv rights, etc.). Why wouldn't further films
also be good revenue sources?

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - Box Office Data, Movie ...Total US Gross, $141,621,490. International Gross, $277,868,796. Worldwide Gross, $419,490,286
===================================

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
Domestic: $291,710,957 39.2%
Foreign: $453,300,315 60.8%
Worldwide: $745,011,272
===================================

[Mister Underhill]

Hey Tuor. The reason is that comparing raw B.O. numbers vs. productions costs leaves out a lot of variables. For instance, take that $419M B.O. and cut it nearly in half to account for the split between the studios and exhibitors and foreign distribution arms. Also deduct the money paid out to gross profit participants.

Then add to the ~$200M in production costs a figure that could very well exceed $100M worldwide in marketing costs (though some of that may be shared by foreign distribution partners). Also add in the expense of things like striking several thousand prints for exhibition in theaters, shipping those prints around the world, and other advertising like posters and whatnot...

You can see why some of these tentpole pictures become a gamble that you'll get close enough to breaking even from box office to make all the other stuff like DVD sales, cable and network licensing, rentals, etc. worth the investment over the long haul.

With expenses creeping up and box office heading steeply south, it's not that big of a surprise that Disney opted out.

[davem]

All of which is why a 'faithful' (or anything even close to it) adaptation of The Hobbit is out of the question at this time. Putting the story as it is on screen would be to guarantee a bomb - even Tolkien disliked the 'twee' nature of the early part of the story - hence his (failed) attempt in 1960 to rewrite it 'in the style' of LotR.

What I've found most interesting over the last few years as regards the TH movie is how few people actually want to see it - to see Tolkien's story on screen that is. Since it was first discussed by movie fans the focus has always seemed to be on how characters like Aragorn, Arwen & Legolas could be included (or at the least 'Orlando Bloom could play Thranduil, & John Rhys Davies Thorin' etc) how the White Council's assault on Dol Guldur could be integrated into the storyline, etc. Once it was announced that the first movie would be a straight adaptation of the book the focus seemed to shift entirely to the second movie - which could include all those things. In fact, it seems like many movie fans are looking forward more to the second movie than to the first.

I'm sure Warners is looking very carefully at what the fans want to see - & what the fans want to see is all the old gang back 'hunting some Orc'. What they don't want to see is a story set sort of in the same world, but with, in the main, different (entirely male) characters.

For all the studios profit is the bottom line, particularly at the moment, & they are going to look very carefully at what kind of Hobbit movie is going to bring in the biggest returns. I don't think that a 'faithful' adaptation of TH would bring in as much as the second movie that's being proposed (which will use many of the LotR characters/settings). The question is will Warners decide to put that movie at risk by putting out a faithful version of TH first?

http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hi...n-treader.aspx
http://www.actressarchives.com/news.php?id=13929

Disney’s decision is expected to severely effect, if not prevent, production on the franchise’s third installment, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” which was scheduled to begin shooting in early 2009. Walden was previously reported to have scaled down “Treader’s” budget from $200 million to somewhere between 100 and $150 million.

So a cut in budget by up to half - what by shooting the exteriors on a back lot & the interiors on blue screen, with the cast doubling up roles? I suspect that audience expectations are for something on the scale of the previous two.

[Sauron the White]

If you want "faithful" you film each page of the actual book with the camera focused tightly on the text and switch pages every minute to give the time for the audience to read. Anything else changes something.