Live Action Jem and the holograms movie coming!

[Dacey]

Pretty rational look at why things played out as they did here:

http://www.comingsoon.net/weekend-warri ... o#/slide/1

[EricJ]

Pretty rational look at why things played out as they did here:

http://www.comingsoon.net/weekend-warri ... o#/slide/1

I’ve never seen the original cartoon and without knowing it and having certain expectations,

Okay, let's dwell on these words for a second...
That's a bit like saying "I've never played any of the Nintendo games, but 'Super Mario Bros.' was a fun movie about alternate dinosaur universes!" Or, "I've never seen a single episode of 'Dark Shadows', but..."--oh, let's not go there.

(I mean, even Shatner knew why the group was called "The Holograms"...Is it re-explained at any point in the new movie? Or if it wasn't, did the question occur to the columnist at any point in watching it?
Jon Chu got the job because of the second GI Joe movie, but at least he remembered who he was working for, and managed to put Cobra in that one, once in a while.)

[Dan]

In a move that's being considered unprecedented, Universal is pulling the film out of theaters after two weeks. It's considered unheard of because it's never happened to a film that opened nation-wide to over 2,000 theaters.

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/movie-did ... 38176.html

[Ben]

It makes sense, though: the film is a big bust (though nowhere near the biggest bomb of all time), so better to stop any spend on having it out there. Films have a locked two-week theatrical obligation; Universal is doing the right thing to pull it quick and they will most likely now shift focus onto repackinging it as a DTV (which it kind of was anyway) or Netflix title while there is a little heat surrounding it. I would expect it to appear in homes by Christmas and skip the usual three-month hold.

[Dacey]

Seems Universal is making a habit out of this. They've also pulled the very well reviewed Steve Jobs from all screens!

[James]

Just a $5 million budget? Not saying that's why it flopped, but if they weren't willing to give it more than that how into this movie's success were they really?

[Ben]

It was a Blumhouse production. Producer Jason Blum's films have never (if only very rarely) been made for more than $5m. Which is why Jem's not actually a flop and will recoup very nicely in ancillary home markets.

[gaastra]

"though nowhere near the biggest bomb of all time"

It's the 3rd biggest bomb of all time for any big studio. Howard the duck was a bigger hit. Also the film is so hated.

Check this video out. They go to a screening and are the only ones there! On the second week! Ouch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27cF1zIw4Iw

The worst part is idw came out with a comic that updated jem and stayed faithful to the cartoon. A small comic can get it right but a big Hollywood studio failed and torn it apart.

Again this started out as a script he wrote years ago that had nothing to do with jem and he just changed it a little to make a jem movie.
They didn't even care to write a new script just used a old one.

[Ben]

At only $5m budget, Jem will have little problem making its money back once home video and television/Netflix type deals come into play (which is why I said I think Uni pulled it, to get it out on those platforms quicker).

It won't make much if any money, and it is a major flop, but it will not end up being a major bomb, financially speaking. On a cost to profit ratio, the film will break even, if it hasn't already, unlike the likes of Pan, which needed to clear $300m in costs and p&a to break even and is a much bigger bomb having raked in little over $100m worldwide.

Also, many films that didn't do critically well or even financially huge were still big money makers, including many "flops" that actually broke even and even made money back. Just because these films were not awards-lauded or didn't launch sequels or franchises they're not labelled hits when in reality they were tidy moneymakers.

[EricJ]

Again this started out as a script he wrote years ago that had nothing to do with jem and he just changed it a little to make a jem movie.
They didn't even care to write a new script just used a old one.

Again, Hasbro had a dozen merchandise-icon movie ideas until someone sank their...well, actually, Battleship sank itself.
The rest of the ideas, like Ouija and Candyland, have pretty much been auctioned off to whoever will take them, and when the production company that acquired this one discovered that Chu had not only done GI Joe 2 but also Justin Bieber's movies, the idea of "What, she's a rock singer, there's a plot?" just seemed to write itself.

At least when the Josie & the Pussycats movie flopped, the makers of that one made some pretense to the original "mystery" concept of the show.

[Ben]

The Josie movie is actually good fun. I saw it on release and we just showed it to the new teenager in the family and she got a good kick out of it ("Coasters!"). It has a good few quips and aims at the modern pop world (boy band name "Du Jour" gets me every time), as well as some decent tunes that didn't sound "old" to those new ears - not bad for a movie that's a decade and a half old now!

And it did well enough to nearly get a sequel, though I think it fell apart because they wanted to swap it to a home video release and most of the cast had moved on by then. Still, the Josie movie isn't the embarrassment it may seem.