ALIEN PREQUEL TOO PRICEY? - Page 2

You sound like an asshole.

Moar liek an awesomehole!

Good arguments all around, but I think I find myself agreeing with the sentiment behind Sebastian's reasoning.

Ridley Scott (or "Scoot" as someone earlier called him) has made some really adept and timeless classic films. I'd rather a master (or once master) of film get the chance to make another great movie, even if it is at the expense of FOX's coffers.

I will say this: if FOX decision makers are being assholes, it's only in the business-culture-of-the-almighty-dollar way, which is how everything usually works anyway.

Also, I will refer to Ridley Scot as "Scoot" from now on.

Nice! Or at least stops them from having money for another Marvel flick, forcing them to lose the rights.
Surely.
I'm shocked Fincher worked with Fox again after ALIEN 3.

I don't think any director should just be given a free pass to do what ever he wants with what ever amount of money he wants, there should be limitations. 250 Mil seems like way to much for hard R "grim and gritty" film... if the 250 was for 2 films, maaaaaybe I would come down on the side of Scott, but as it stands now I think he is the asshole not to budge.

Some of the best film moments are born from the limitations of technology, time and budget. If Scott is truly the master he once was, he could make this move amazing at half that price.

OK, the post you're referring to was a joke, but I'm an asshole for siding with the artist over the studio? Really?

This prequel is a bad idea on its face Ridley Scott hasn't made anything worthwhile since KOH and even that almost fell on its face (Bettany who Scott preferred would have been much better than the studios choice Bloom).

I agree 250 million just isn't smart. I wish we knew someone who has read this script because i'd love to know if its good and if it deserves this kind of budget. This isn't Avatar after all.

I hate to agree with Fox but given the pieces I know of I have to. Also name one classic film thats a prequel?

"You can't blame them for making money" is the single most fucking annoying expression in the English language. Yes, you certainly can blame them. I do often. It's just irrational blame.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure?

Not a prequel. At all. Wish people would stop pegging the poncho as evidence that those films are at all connected in any way other than thematically.

What? I can't believe that's the first time I heard of this. People are claiming The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is a prequel? Why? This sounds so weird to me.

Technically speaking... isn't Temple of Doom a prequel?

It is! Good call.

People try to make the leap that because Blondie puts on the poncho at the end of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly that it's a prequel to A Fistful of Dollars, when all it was was a callback to that film since Leone was finished with his trilogy. It was meant to be an in-joke, but there are some who use that as a springboard to suggest that all three films are actual sequels/prequels to each other. Which is just silly.

As for this Alien Prequel, I'd actually be thrilled if it never happened. I'd also be thrilled if we never saw a Predator or Xenomorph ever again. When is our generation going to step up and come up with our own monsters and franchises? We've been trading on nostalgia for too long.

Sebastian, nobody here is "siding with" the studio over the artist. It isn't a football game. This isn't some kind of ethical or moral debate. It's simply understandable that they wouldn't want to hand over that kind of money to face that kind of risk in this kind of economy. Is that hard to understand? It's a bad investment, plain and simple.

The reality is that movies are an art form that requires financial backing, and investors need to be convinced that their investment will pay off. If Scott wants to go off and make a brilliant painting, he can do it for the cost of canvas, brushes and paint, and nobody will stop him. If he wants to make a massive movie, somebody's got to pay for it. Fox is within their rights to refuse to do so. It doesn't make them wrong for not supporting art.

I've honestly never heard this before. People are retarded.

Well to be fair, the 70s and 80s were like a second golden age of movie monsters. After the classic Universal period there wasn't a continuous stream of memorable and new creatures and the 80s were another era of ridiculous growth in that genre.

Yeah, recognising that it's not really 'assholish' to not hand over $250 million for the non-blockbusting prospect of a couple hard R Alien movies isn't siding with the corporations over the artists, it's just recognising that it was a pie in the sky concept in the first place.

I wouldn't mind seeing Scott having a crack at these movies though. He seems to have a fairly specific vision in mind for it, that sounds different from what the movies have been doing. And what's the worst that could happen - that we end up with six inferior Alien movies instead of just four? Plus all the knee-jerk whining is so boring at this point, I'd like to see them get made and to turn out good just to spite everyone who can't stop bitching about them.

Bad investment, but giving Ridley that budget for two Alien movies could lead to some great movies. I have a feeling the man is viewing these as his last hurrah, I really think that Ridley will bring more to this than he would say, Robin Hood. Him coming back to Alien, this late in his career, I think the man does have a real vision for it if he has a vision for anything these days.

I know all the talks about the economy and being irresponsible, but really at the end of the day, we should just be rooting for the best movies possible. A cheapo Alien movie isn't that, even if the economics make sense. Predators SUCKED after all, I don't care if it looked good on paper.

I'd argue only Raiders is a true classic.

I'd argue only Raiders is actually good. It's a steady downhill run from there.

Chris Myers, Indiana Jones And The Temple of Doom, is...almost as great as, Raiders Of The Lost Ark. To me, Temple Of Doom is a...Classic.

I disagree... Last Crusade was great aswell... I would say that Temple is the weak link of the trilogy (but miles better than Crystal Skull) but it is still a great film and many people consider it a classic.

Can't you fuckers even wait for the next Indy 5 non-story before having this discussion for the billionth time?

I never do this because I hated the system, but...

To be fair I have never had this discussion here... but this isn't an Indy thread so I will speak no more on the subject.

Like there's so much more discussion to mine from staying on the subject of the thread. I'm pretty sure we've discussed the Alien films as exhaustively as the Indy films.

I hope the whole project goes down, if it means Scott will finally move on to "The Forever War".
But thats me.

It's not just you. We do not need an Alien prequel, from Ridley Scott or anyone else. I'd rather see him working on something new.

I was being sarcastic.

Really? You'd be surprised at how many people buy into it. People use the poncho as their main piece of evidence. But also the fact that it takes place in the civil war (1861-65). And in Few Dollars More, Van Cleef appears to be a confederate veteran. And again, in Fistful a headstone has the year 1873 on it. That's why there are a lot of people that will swear to you that Good, Bad is a prequel.

EDIT: Also forgot to add that I've read that since the movies are commonly referred to as a 'trilogy' that is also "proof"

Yep. There are even people that consider Godfather 2 a true prequel. They consider it a prequel with flashforwards instead of a a sequel with flashbacks.

Just give him the money.

First it was, we're not doing it unless it's Ridley, and now that Ridley agreed they're skimping out on his vision.

One thing that the projected budget indicates is that he's not just making another Alien, and why the fuck would he, he's already done it in the 70's and the movie turned out near flawless. Why try to top it, and waste his precious time on doing the same thing again? But no, the 250 million clearly says that he's trying something with much more scope and not just a haunted house movie, and I'm all for that notion.

If you ain't going to try and move the franchise to some new ideas, why the fuck bother with it in the 1st place? If it's all about the profit for Fox, then fire Ridley and let some hack do the same damn thing again...

I really hate this idea that you need massive amounts of cash to realize ambition, and I hate that Scott has fallen into that trap. Watch District 9 and tell me that film has no ambition. Watching that made me wonder where the hell all the extra money goes in these studio blockbusters. It's insane. 250 million is a stupid amount of money to make a movie. It's out of control. I don't care what he has in mind, he doesn't need that much.

I wish could find this article I read about executives using loopholes and whatnot to pocket a lot of the production cash from these megabudget movies.

That is a fair point, movies are too expensive, but you usually don't hear people complaining about other movies being 200+ million budgets, so why is Alien a problem, especially if he's shooting two films for that money? Is it the rating? Or the state of the franchise?

Both are valid points, but I think also irrelevant if the film turns out great.

Actually, people have been complaining about out-of-control movie budgets for years. There was a lot of pre-release flack around Avatar and its budget that could feed a medium-sized country for three years.

And it's not irrelevant at all, whether the film turns out great or not. These budgets are unnecessary. The problem is that modern effects tools have turned many filmmakers into spoiled children. Now that they can realize anything they can imagine, they think their story can't be told with anything less. In previous generations, storytellers with that kind of ambition wrote novels. Ambition is free in that format.

There's one dirty little secret that no one in the industry will admit, and it's a fact. Every movie makes money in the long run. So if this movie is great and it tanks, it will recuperate sooner.

The only real harm that excessive budgets are doing is to the artform of film, not their profitability.

Besides, if Avatar's budget can feed a third world country for years is also irrelevant, this is capitalism after all... Money goes in, money comes out. And not like Avatar tanked.

What? that makes zero sense!

So if Scott wanted, lets say, 10 billion to make the film, it would be fine because the fact is that every movie makes its budget back?

Yeah, I really don't see what point you're making there, reporter.

I'm talking about the reality of the industry and no studio has that money to spare, and no director has the means to spend it. Unless he wants to film it on the surface of the moon. Even then it wouldn't cost him that much...

But yes, it's just as I said. Think about theater sales, merchandising, licensing, then TV, cable, on demand and pay per view, hotels, airplanes, dvd, blu ray, the new media etc, etc. And then, do the same, but for overseas... Every major movie gets exposed to all of this within a year. In the long run it's still there, and they push it even further with double dips in the dvd market, limited and sometimes wide re-releases even more merchandising etc.

It's all true, and it makes perfect sense.

Yes, but what does it have to do with anything? I really don't care if it turns a profit. I'm not going to see any of that money. I just want a good movie. And a good movie doesn't cost that much to make.

Flops have ruined studios, reporter.

True. Fox was almost destroyed by Cleopatra and Hello Dolly, and only pulled out by putting small budgets into the Planet of the Apes films for big returns.

Of course, that was before home video.

And Carolco was driven into bankruptcy by Cutthroat Island. Point is, saying that studio can burn cash because they WILL make it back is a gross oversimplification.

It has nothing to do with the quality of this film, I'm just trying to say that the budget is not the problem in this case. No matter what this movie will make at least 200 million worldwide, guaranteed. That covers about half this budget. The rest will come by other means, and fast, even if the movie is garbage.

I'm not saying that a good movie costs 250 million either, but why oppose the notion of Ridley Scott doing an Alien movie for 250 million? Just like you said, you won't see a dime of it, but then again it wont cost you a dime either. Well, it will cost you a ticket, but that's what you'd pay even if it was budgeted at 50 million.

Also, flops don't ruin studios, bad decisions do (there's a reason the movie's a flop after all). And Cleopatra turned profitable for Fox in the 80's I think, look it up.

That may be, but no studio is going to look at a film that takes 20 years to turn a profit as a good decision. Fact of the matter is, if Fox hadn't pulled out the successes it did in the late 60s, it would've gone the way of UA before it, and MGM today.

Was it a bad decision to put so much money in something like Cleopatra? In hindsight, maybe. But at the time it probably felt like a sure thing. You had Liz Taylor at the height of her popularity, Rex Harrison fresh off an Oscar win, and the sword-n-sandal Roman/Biblical epics were cash cows at the time. The production was lavish and ridiculous, but if they made their money back no one would remember it. Same goes for Avatar--in five years no one will look at the bullets the studio was sweating beforehand trying to sell the thing, they'll just remember it being the biggest fuck-you-pay-me blockbuster to date.

All megaproductions are just an opening weekend away from being totally worth it, or the boot shoved firmly in a studio executive's ass. The problem I think people are having here is not only is this Alien prequel not needed, it's also an unwise investment up front. $250 million for even two films for a franchise that's never made more than $85 million at the box office is so stupid even Fox was able to catch it.

That's all true, but you forget to mention that Cleopatra was costing Fox 45 million dollars in 1963!!! That's over 300 million in today's money.

But never mind that. Alien is a huge and well established franchise for Fox, that they rightfully want to reinvigorate. 250 million might be too much, but if fox wants Ridley, and Ridley needs 250 million to do whatever the fuck he plans to do, then do it I say. Not for the sake of being profitable in two weeks after release, but for reaffirming a more than worthy franchise that was dragged through the gutter for the better part of the last three decades.

Alien maybe huge and well established, but non of the movies make a ton of money... and if Ridley wants to make a hard R grim and gritty film then you limit the potential Box Office even more. If the absolute best case scenario for a film is just making the budget back domestically, it is not a wise move to spend so much.

Alien made 80 Million in '79. That's a ton of money, even by today's industry standards. I think it's actually around 250 million when inflated.

It's not that I don't understand that the budget is heavy, it's just me saying why give a fuck? Especially fans, why the fuck do people object to this budget? Fox will probably profit from it anyway. And we'll get Ridley's movie, as intended.

But no, people seem to advocate a budget cut, which means the script is the 1st that gets on the butcher's table and scenes will get cut and re-written. Why the script? Because that's where you estimate the budget from. This is not Ridley going mad and throwing out wild numbers here, it's his team estimating how much they need to realize the script as he envisions it, without compromises.

And compromises don't make great films, and this budget cut is one, and will probably lead to many more.

This movie does not need to exist, so I'm for whatever keeps it from the megaplex.

Actually, it often does. See Jaws.