Sunday, April 21, 2019
Sunday, August 28, 2016
STOP HATING ON THE HATERS OF GHOSTBUSTERS: Why We Should Take Schadenfreudian Pleasure In Ghostbusters' Karmically-Just Failure
By Lestov16, Professional Reverie Researcher
"It wasn't the worst film ever, so that means we should just forget about its misandrist dehumanizing hate campaign that started the moment they announced they would be excluding men from the Ghostbusters team. Let's forget about it all, despite the fact that the cast and director haven't issued any apologies for insulting and censoring anybody (including constructive criticism from women) who criticized the trailer and leading a false narrative that the film was being attacked by basement dwelling misogynists and racists (despite the fact that the film was greenlit by Amy Pascal, a proven misogynist racist). I just don't understand why people won't let this slide....."
-people trying to defend the movie
2016 Ghostbusters, the ill conceived brainchild of misogynist Amy Pascal and misandrist Paul Feig, aka the world's worst hypocrites, was a doomed production ever since its inception. From the moment of its announcement, it was clear that the filmmakers' primary goal was to push their "female equality"(in name only; the true word is misandrist) political agenda rather than deliver a quality comedy for either fans or general audiences.
When fans and audiences (aka the potential customers) stated their various complaints, Sony chose to make the baffling move to insult them, the mistake that led to Fan4stic becoming a box office flop, a mistake Sony is stated to have specifically wanted to avoid.
Perhaps most diabolical of all, the filmmakers proved that their supposed agenda of "female equality" was A MASSIVE LIE by purposely censoring and deleting the comments of women who gave objective constructive criticisms of the film. This was to perpetuate a propaganda campaign that dehumanized anybody who expressed dislike for the film as lethargic insecure misogynists.
"Professional" media outlets derided the superlatively disliked Youtube trailer as hatred from petty misogynists, referencing a handful of misogynist troll comments that were liable to pop up regardless of the film's quality. The outlets proceeded to treat this minority of comments as the reason for the majority of the dislike, a deception which was helped by the intentional deletion and censoring of many objectively critical comments from both men and women.
Interesting, acclaimed Youtube reviewers RedLetterMedia calculated the trailers numbers to reveal that although the majority of people who saw the trailer disliked it, only less than 1% chose to leave misogynist comments, proving that the claims by media outlets stating the film's dislike was caused by misogyny was a blatant lie. (The video can be seen here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UWROBiX1eSc)
Perhaps the egregious example of the dehumanizing propaganda campaign were the petty disparaging attacks by professional (Sony influenced) media outlets upon internet critic James Rolfe for his objective criticisms of the trailer, which hypocritically led to misogynist insults towards Rolfe's wife, who was derided as a "gold digger".
The film's director and cast also made unjust attacks upon the film's detractors while ignoring all constructive criticism about the film. Paul Feig infamously stated that "geek culture" (aka the fans of the Ghostbusters franchise and thus the most important potential customers of the film) were all "assholes". Melissa McCarthy stated that critics of the film were lethargic basement dwellers. Kristen Wiig stated that critics were mentally insane and needed psychiatric help. Kate McKinnon stated that critics of the film had psychologically unresolved "mommy issues". Most infamously, Leslie Jones engaged in a Twitter war which proved humiliating as her accusations of racism were countered with her own hypocritical Twitter posts.
Now exactly how much of the vilification of critics was voluntary is debatable. There are reports that Sony made the cast sign contracts to oblige them not to bad mouth the film (ironically to prevent a repeat of Josh Trank's infamous antics during Fan4stic's production that led to its financial flopping, antics which Sony ended up doubling down on during Ghostbusters, leading to similar financial results). McCarthy was reported to have argued about the film's direction with Paul Feig, as McCarthy's desire to adapt The Real Ghostbusters clashed with Feig's misandrist agenda. Also, it is reported that Kristen Wiig was heard on set numerous times telling her friends that the film was a disaster and that she made a mistake for signing on to it. So whether the cast insulted critics out of volition or obligation is debatable.
Regardless of the casts' culpability in the insults, the fact is that the film marketed itself not based on its inherently quality, but based on the lie that the film was being unjustly oppressed by misogynist trolls. Despite the media's propaganda to spread this lie, neither male nor female audiences were fooled. As a result of the marketing campaigns lies, insults, censorship, and propaganda, Ghostbusters plummeted financially to become one of Sony's most costly flops, costing them over $100 million in losses (see my prior article for details).
Ghostbusters deserves the merciless bashing it is receiving at the hands of the box office and gratified fans who are taking glee in the film's failure.
Most movies can just be judged by its merit and quality alone, regardless of production troubles. This film is different because the cast and director went out of their way to repeatedly insult and censor everybody who criticized the rather unlikable trailer.
And it would be one thing if only misgoynist/racist/trolls attacked the film, but Sony purposely erased constructive criticism from objective men and women to market their film under the lie that anybody who attacked the film was victimizing them. Even worse is that despite their claims of misogyny, the film ended up misandrist in its portrayal of men, thus making all of their insults and conspiring massively hypocritical.
So after months of being repeatedly insulted by the studio, director, and cast and then insulted by the hypocrisy of the film itself, one doesn't expect people to be taking glee in this film's failure? It's impossible not to judge this film based on its despicable behind the scenes controversies, because these controversies are exactly what the film was marketed under by Feig and the cast.
If you're wondering why people seem to be taking it personally, it's because the production staff from the start made it personal with their dehumanizing insults towards anybody who criticized it. Of course people will be angry and relish in its failure.
That's what generally happens when you repeatedly and unjustly insult and vilify people. They take great pleasure in your downfall. Don't know why this film's defenders expect different here.
"It wasn't the worst film ever, so that means we should just forget about its misandrist dehumanizing hate campaign that started the moment they announced they would be excluding men from the Ghostbusters team. Let's forget about it all, despite the fact that the cast and director haven't issued any apologies for insulting and censoring anybody (including constructive criticism from women) who criticized the trailer and leading a false narrative that the film was being attacked by basement dwelling misogynists and racists (despite the fact that the film was greenlit by Amy Pascal, a proven misogynist racist). I just don't understand why people won't let this slide....."
-people trying to defend the movie
2016 Ghostbusters, the ill conceived brainchild of misogynist Amy Pascal and misandrist Paul Feig, aka the world's worst hypocrites, was a doomed production ever since its inception. From the moment of its announcement, it was clear that the filmmakers' primary goal was to push their "female equality"(in name only; the true word is misandrist) political agenda rather than deliver a quality comedy for either fans or general audiences.
When fans and audiences (aka the potential customers) stated their various complaints, Sony chose to make the baffling move to insult them, the mistake that led to Fan4stic becoming a box office flop, a mistake Sony is stated to have specifically wanted to avoid.
Perhaps most diabolical of all, the filmmakers proved that their supposed agenda of "female equality" was A MASSIVE LIE by purposely censoring and deleting the comments of women who gave objective constructive criticisms of the film. This was to perpetuate a propaganda campaign that dehumanized anybody who expressed dislike for the film as lethargic insecure misogynists.
"Professional" media outlets derided the superlatively disliked Youtube trailer as hatred from petty misogynists, referencing a handful of misogynist troll comments that were liable to pop up regardless of the film's quality. The outlets proceeded to treat this minority of comments as the reason for the majority of the dislike, a deception which was helped by the intentional deletion and censoring of many objectively critical comments from both men and women.
Interesting, acclaimed Youtube reviewers RedLetterMedia calculated the trailers numbers to reveal that although the majority of people who saw the trailer disliked it, only less than 1% chose to leave misogynist comments, proving that the claims by media outlets stating the film's dislike was caused by misogyny was a blatant lie. (The video can be seen here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UWROBiX1eSc)
Perhaps the egregious example of the dehumanizing propaganda campaign were the petty disparaging attacks by professional (Sony influenced) media outlets upon internet critic James Rolfe for his objective criticisms of the trailer, which hypocritically led to misogynist insults towards Rolfe's wife, who was derided as a "gold digger".
The film's director and cast also made unjust attacks upon the film's detractors while ignoring all constructive criticism about the film. Paul Feig infamously stated that "geek culture" (aka the fans of the Ghostbusters franchise and thus the most important potential customers of the film) were all "assholes". Melissa McCarthy stated that critics of the film were lethargic basement dwellers. Kristen Wiig stated that critics were mentally insane and needed psychiatric help. Kate McKinnon stated that critics of the film had psychologically unresolved "mommy issues". Most infamously, Leslie Jones engaged in a Twitter war which proved humiliating as her accusations of racism were countered with her own hypocritical Twitter posts.
Now exactly how much of the vilification of critics was voluntary is debatable. There are reports that Sony made the cast sign contracts to oblige them not to bad mouth the film (ironically to prevent a repeat of Josh Trank's infamous antics during Fan4stic's production that led to its financial flopping, antics which Sony ended up doubling down on during Ghostbusters, leading to similar financial results). McCarthy was reported to have argued about the film's direction with Paul Feig, as McCarthy's desire to adapt The Real Ghostbusters clashed with Feig's misandrist agenda. Also, it is reported that Kristen Wiig was heard on set numerous times telling her friends that the film was a disaster and that she made a mistake for signing on to it. So whether the cast insulted critics out of volition or obligation is debatable.
Regardless of the casts' culpability in the insults, the fact is that the film marketed itself not based on its inherently quality, but based on the lie that the film was being unjustly oppressed by misogynist trolls. Despite the media's propaganda to spread this lie, neither male nor female audiences were fooled. As a result of the marketing campaigns lies, insults, censorship, and propaganda, Ghostbusters plummeted financially to become one of Sony's most costly flops, costing them over $100 million in losses (see my prior article for details).
Ghostbusters deserves the merciless bashing it is receiving at the hands of the box office and gratified fans who are taking glee in the film's failure.
Most movies can just be judged by its merit and quality alone, regardless of production troubles. This film is different because the cast and director went out of their way to repeatedly insult and censor everybody who criticized the rather unlikable trailer.
And it would be one thing if only misgoynist/racist/trolls attacked the film, but Sony purposely erased constructive criticism from objective men and women to market their film under the lie that anybody who attacked the film was victimizing them. Even worse is that despite their claims of misogyny, the film ended up misandrist in its portrayal of men, thus making all of their insults and conspiring massively hypocritical.
So after months of being repeatedly insulted by the studio, director, and cast and then insulted by the hypocrisy of the film itself, one doesn't expect people to be taking glee in this film's failure? It's impossible not to judge this film based on its despicable behind the scenes controversies, because these controversies are exactly what the film was marketed under by Feig and the cast.
If you're wondering why people seem to be taking it personally, it's because the production staff from the start made it personal with their dehumanizing insults towards anybody who criticized it. Of course people will be angry and relish in its failure.
That's what generally happens when you repeatedly and unjustly insult and vilify people. They take great pleasure in your downfall. Don't know why this film's defenders expect different here.
Friday, August 26, 2016
HYPOCRITEBUSTERS: The Despicable Deception behind Ghostbusters' Pro-Egalitarian "Message"
In possibly the worst marketing campaign in cinematic history, the cast and crew of the Ghostbusters reboot attempted to use divisive politically-charged claims of misogyny and racism to dehumanize those who criticized the film, and claim that the film represented the fight for female and race equality against systemic oppression.
However, despite these dehumanizing tactics ultimately failing, resulting a karmically-just flop that couldn't even recoup half of its budget (as insulting, dehumanizing, and generalizing the customers you intend to buy your product tends to lead said customers to not buy the product), there may be an even worse, more painful irony for Feig and the cast who possibly put their careers on the line to defend the films supposed egalitarian message.....
Amy Pascal is the architect behind Ghostbusters 2016, an immensely underperforming flop that may be costly for their studio than the infamous Costner flop Waterworld. The story behind the films development is a tale of arrogance, ignorance, selfishness, and worst of all hypocrisy.
Let's begin with the coerced removal of Ivan Reitman from the production. Reitman (along with Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis) is essentially the co-creator of Ghostbusters, and for years was anticipating and writing scripts for a third Ghostbusters film, which he essentially held the rights for. However, upon choosing to reboot Ghostbusters, Amy Pascal chose to scrap his input entirely, and as contracts stated that GB could not have another film without his permission, she used the threat of bureaucratic litigation to force him to allow the reboot and remove any creative input he could have on the reboot ("aggressive litigation" was apparently also used to force Bill Murray to return)
Pascal was seemingly determined to turn the franchise into a female-oriented property, hiring Paul Feig, known for his successful female-led comedies, especially the film Bridesmaids, which was considered to be the"female Hangover" in terms of critical and financial success, as well as his near-misandrist feminism due to childhood bullying. Pascal and Feig conspired to entirely alter the appeal of the franchise to make it female-oriented, and decided an all female cast would better serve their pro-female message than a team with both genders, as Reitman had planned.
To give you an example of exactly how stupid a decision this was to fire Reitman and abandon his original vision and hire Feig and alter the appeal of the franchise, let's look at two recent reboots, one of which was a massive hit, the other, a massive flop.
Mad Max: Fury Road was a reboot helmed by George Miller, the original creator of the franchise. Rather than interfere with his vision, which was obviously the appeal of the franchise, WB allowed Miller to continue his vision of the Mad Max world, and due to supplying the vision that made the franchise successful in the first place, Fury Road became a critical and financial juggernaut.
Fan4stic was a reboot helmed by Josh Trank, a young director with one successful film who had absolutely no respect for the original Fantastic Four source material. Trank attempted to alter the appeal of the franchise from being light-hearted sci-fi adventure to dark depressing body horror, a move that led to a critical and financial failure for Fox.
Under Reitman, 2016 Ghostbusters would have surely been a Fury Road, earning back possibly triple its budget, but instead it was helmed under Feig and thus became a Fan4stic, not even earning back half of its budget.
As stated, Pascal attempted to alter the appeal of the franchise to make it more female oriented, but as Fury Road and The Force Awakens showed, women can be major characters in a successful reboot. The key to this however is to be all-inclusive with both women and men, which Pascal and Feig failed to realize when they decided to alienate male viewers with an all female team and no competent men in the entire film, thus appearing to be less about egalitarianism and more about misandry.
Consider that Paul Feig stated that the strong female characters will inspire young girls. Considering that all men in the film are stupid or villainous, how is this film supposed to inspire young boys? This is one of the many reasons the film is widely considered to be misandrist despite its filmmakers claims of egalitarianism.
But that leads into the ultimate hypocrisy. Throughout the production and marketing of the film, Paul Feig, the cast, and Sony-proxy journalist sites, accused anybody who criticized the film to be either misogynist against the female cast of racist against Leslie Jones. Perhaps the most despicable example of this were the petty unwarranted vicious attacks on AVGN, whose objective criticisms of the trailer were met with scathing claims of misogyny.
Other examples of the dehumanization and accusations of misogyny and racism of the film's detractors by the cast and crew during production include Mellisa McCarthy insinuating that detractors were basement dwelling losers, Kristen Wig insinuating that detractors were mentally unstable, Kate McKinnon insinuating that detractors had "mommy issues", and of course, the infamous Twitter war in which Leslie Jones insinuated that detractors were racist misogynists. And let's not forget director Paul Feig insinuating that detractors were asshole geeks.
While the damage of these insults is clearly reflected in the films terrible box office and forever stained reputations of the film's director and cast, the damage may be even worse when one realizes that the entire reason for the film's existence is based on a lie.
Let's talk about Amy Pascal. As stated, she is the mastermind of the misandrist "pro-gender/race equality" 2016 Ghostbusters. She is also a horrific misogynist racist.
Back when Sony was hacked, which led to Pascal's demotion and eventually firing, Pascal was revealed to be a racist who gleefully insulted African Americans, stating that she believed Obama would be a "fan of Django". Even worse however, she was proven to be a misogynist who purposefully paid actresses less than actors and kept them ignorant of the wage gap. After Pascal's demotion, Charlize Theron used this knowledge to get equal pay for the Huntsman films.
So that means that this films entire conception and promotion was a lie. Did supposed women's-rights supporter Paul Feig know of Pascal's misogynist business tactics. Did Mellisa McCarthy, or Wiig or McKinnon, know that by promoting Ghostbusters as anti-misogynist, they were actually promoting a film masterminded by a misogynist? When Leslie Jones got into her Twitter war attacking fans with claims of racism, did she know that the film she was defending was spearheaded by a racist?
This revelation of Pascal's racism and misogyny makes the film's unethical conception and marketing campaign not only worthless (actually costly considering it will lose half its budget) offensive, and arguably misandrist, but now also hypocritical. This makes Feig and the cast look like complete morons who are completely ignorant at best and unethically deceptive at worst.
The implications of this on the reputation of the film and it's cast/director is absolutely humiliating. Let's hope the next reboot director and cast choose to honor the source material and fans (i.e. customers), rather than demean them with (embarrassingly hypocritical) insults.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
GHOSTBUSTERS: A FANTASTIC $170 (not $75) MILLION LOSS
By Lestov16, Professional Reverie Researcher
As the ill conceived, ill marketed, ill reviewed Ghostbusters flops in its final international market of Japan, we examine the causes and consequences of this giant bust of a movie and compare it to an earlier film whose fantastic mistakes clearly weren't heeded.....
Fan4stic was made with a $120 million budget plus $80 million in marketing and reboots, meaning it cost $200 million to make. It only made $168 million in BO, meaning that, removing 50% theater profits, it only earned back 84 million, losing 116 million, aka it lost 58% of what it cost to make it.
Ghostbusters was made with $144 million budget plus $100-150 million in marketing costs, meaning $244-294 million was cost to make it. It will only make back $215 (being generous, as it will probably be only be $210) million in BO, meaning that, removing 50% theater profits, it only earned back 107 million, losing at least $137 million, aka it lost 56% of what it cost to make it
***(this is assuming the cost was $244 million; if marketing really was $150 million, that means this film lost $190 million aka 64% of its budget, which is worst than Fan4stic....)
Neither film was able to rely on merchandise sales, as Marvel kept any of FF merchandising money (although it's stated they purposefully decreased their X Men/FF merchandise output to spite Fox), and as far as Ghostbusters merchandise, the toys sold so little that they were on clearance before the film's release, and the game was so badly reviewed and sold that the company that made it went bankrupt days after the film's release.
Fan4stic only made $13 million in home sales, aka 7% of it's theater grossings, meaning that in total it earned 97 million and thus lost $103 million, aka 51% of its total budget.
Now if Ghostbusters has the same 7% trend, it will only make $15 million in home sales, bringing the film's total earnings to $122 million, thus losing $122-172 million, aka 50-58% (depending on the marketing cost) of its total budget.
It should be noted that studios are known to downplay if not outright hide financial numbers from the public to avoid scrutiny. So while Sony may have officially stated that it will have at worst a $75 million loss, as the numbers above show, the true size of the loss will be probably be double that. This is also the reason for Feig constantly shifting the break even number.
Doing simple math, if the films budget was $144 m, with an additional $100 m in advertising (again assuming the marketing cost was not $150 million as rumoured), that would bring the total cost of the film to $244 m, we'll say $250 m to be safe. Now since theater chains take half of the box office, that means that in order for the studio to make its money back, it would have to gross at least $500 m, which is what Feig originally stated, as if we went with his lower estimate of $300 m, that would mean that the studio would only make back $150 mil, less than half of the film's total production and marketing costs. However, considering the film did not even reach $300 million, not even $250 m, theatrically, and will likely do poorly in home sales, even Feig's most lowest bar for profit could not be met.
Both films had directors and studio executives attempting to alter the essential concepts of their franchise and deriding fan criticism during production, only to then attempt to market their film to said fans, with obvious disastrous results.
You have to love how stupid Sony, in particular executive Amy Pascal, and Paul Feig are. Just one year prior, Fantastic Four flopped at the box office, and the reasons for it's flopping was widely regarded to be Josh Trank's various internet posts attacking fans during production despite Fox doing everything possible to suppress his antics.
So what does Feig and Sony do? Not only do they support Feig's various attacks of the fans, but they actually encourage it.
With FF, Trank made various demeaning posts towards fans, but the cast and studio did everything they could to stay clean of director Trank's shenanigans so they would be absolved from the inevitable loss. With GB, on the other hand, the studio, director, AND cast all took turns demeaning the fans that they would eventually rely on (and receive no help from) to earn their box office. Even worse, they attacked AVGN for his objective criticism of the trailer, causing many on the internet to view the filmmakers as petty, unethical, and ruthless.
And you NEVER bring politics into the situation, which Feig did despite Sony trying to stop him. Amongst both Democrats and Republicans, Hillary is hated by millions as the second worst presidential candidate ever (behind Trump) and vehemently supporting her is sure to cause boycott from her MANY detractors.
That's why this movie tanked at the end of the day. Even if the film's quality is poor, it would have still made far more at the box office if Feig, Sony, and McCarthy didn't alienate millions of potential customers with their misandrist pro-Hillary marketing campaign before the film's release.
Any smart person would know that even if you are knowingly making a lazy reboot for a cash grab, even if the fans know it, you do everything you can to ensure the fans that they might enjoy your product, because they are your customers. The entire point of rebooting a cash cow franchise is to milk any remaining money out of prior customers of the franchise. You don't alter the appeal of the product, and thus the reason the customers originally bought the product, and then insult them before the film even premieres. Just like Trank, Sony, Pascal, and Feig made the ridiculous mistake of insulting the customers they would need to buy their product, and just like Trank it proved costly.
This film is looking at a $120-170 million loss, and this is at a time when Sony Films is DESPERATE for a success. Heads are going to roll with this one, and considering Tom "Firefly Cancelled" Rothman has the excuse of lowering the budget (yes, the situation is so bad that it made Tom Rothman look good...), that means that Pascal will (rightfully) carry the blame for this disaster.
Pascal was demoted for the Sony hacks, but after this, I can't see Sony keeping her around. As soon as all the final BO comes in and Sony sees exactly how much it lost, Pascal is probably going to get canned completely, and probably blacklisted if Ghostbusters leads to critical jeopardy for Sony Films Division.
As stated, Feig pulled a full on Josh Trank, rebooting a franchise in a way that completely alters the original concept of the franchise, and then taking it personally, acting like a baby, and lashing out at anybody who criticized those alterations. Hopefully his career will be finished after this. Any film he makes will carry the sting of this movie.
Feig, just like Trank, repeatedly acted like an arrogant petulant child towards what ultimately became legitimate criticisms of the movie. He's permanently stained himself with audiences and due to his flop costing Sony over $100 million, I definitely don't see any major studio placing him in charge of a big budget production. He's damaged goods at this point. Just like Trank.
Melissa McCarthy may also take a hit to her career and popularity for her offensive "basement dweller" comments, which made her appear myopic, petty, and arrogant. It will definitely affect her name as a box office draw.
This movie didn't deserve a chance. It was a cash cow product that literally had all original artistic merit sucked out of it via Amy Pascal booting Ivan Reitman, the creator of the franchise, off the film. Unless this film turned out to the Citizen Kane of supernatural comedies, it didn't deserve it's original creator to be booted off and replaced with a mildly successful director who insulted the fans.
I hope it bombs and honestly I hope it bombs so bad that it bankrupts Sony and it's all Pascal's fault. She deserves it for inferring with the artistic process by booting the artist who created the product she wanted to exploit. It's like stealing somebody's invention and then making said invention inoperable, or stealing an artist's masterpiece painting and then scribbling all over it. It's absolutely shameful. Amy Pascal and Paul Feig are going to get theirs for stealing Ivan Reitman's art from him.
As the ill conceived, ill marketed, ill reviewed Ghostbusters flops in its final international market of Japan, we examine the causes and consequences of this giant bust of a movie and compare it to an earlier film whose fantastic mistakes clearly weren't heeded.....
Fan4stic was made with a $120 million budget plus $80 million in marketing and reboots, meaning it cost $200 million to make. It only made $168 million in BO, meaning that, removing 50% theater profits, it only earned back 84 million, losing 116 million, aka it lost 58% of what it cost to make it.
Ghostbusters was made with $144 million budget plus $100-150 million in marketing costs, meaning $244-294 million was cost to make it. It will only make back $215 (being generous, as it will probably be only be $210) million in BO, meaning that, removing 50% theater profits, it only earned back 107 million, losing at least $137 million, aka it lost 56% of what it cost to make it
***(this is assuming the cost was $244 million; if marketing really was $150 million, that means this film lost $190 million aka 64% of its budget, which is worst than Fan4stic....)
Neither film was able to rely on merchandise sales, as Marvel kept any of FF merchandising money (although it's stated they purposefully decreased their X Men/FF merchandise output to spite Fox), and as far as Ghostbusters merchandise, the toys sold so little that they were on clearance before the film's release, and the game was so badly reviewed and sold that the company that made it went bankrupt days after the film's release.
Fan4stic only made $13 million in home sales, aka 7% of it's theater grossings, meaning that in total it earned 97 million and thus lost $103 million, aka 51% of its total budget.
Now if Ghostbusters has the same 7% trend, it will only make $15 million in home sales, bringing the film's total earnings to $122 million, thus losing $122-172 million, aka 50-58% (depending on the marketing cost) of its total budget.
It should be noted that studios are known to downplay if not outright hide financial numbers from the public to avoid scrutiny. So while Sony may have officially stated that it will have at worst a $75 million loss, as the numbers above show, the true size of the loss will be probably be double that. This is also the reason for Feig constantly shifting the break even number.
Doing simple math, if the films budget was $144 m, with an additional $100 m in advertising (again assuming the marketing cost was not $150 million as rumoured), that would bring the total cost of the film to $244 m, we'll say $250 m to be safe. Now since theater chains take half of the box office, that means that in order for the studio to make its money back, it would have to gross at least $500 m, which is what Feig originally stated, as if we went with his lower estimate of $300 m, that would mean that the studio would only make back $150 mil, less than half of the film's total production and marketing costs. However, considering the film did not even reach $300 million, not even $250 m, theatrically, and will likely do poorly in home sales, even Feig's most lowest bar for profit could not be met.
Both films had directors and studio executives attempting to alter the essential concepts of their franchise and deriding fan criticism during production, only to then attempt to market their film to said fans, with obvious disastrous results.
You have to love how stupid Sony, in particular executive Amy Pascal, and Paul Feig are. Just one year prior, Fantastic Four flopped at the box office, and the reasons for it's flopping was widely regarded to be Josh Trank's various internet posts attacking fans during production despite Fox doing everything possible to suppress his antics.
So what does Feig and Sony do? Not only do they support Feig's various attacks of the fans, but they actually encourage it.
With FF, Trank made various demeaning posts towards fans, but the cast and studio did everything they could to stay clean of director Trank's shenanigans so they would be absolved from the inevitable loss. With GB, on the other hand, the studio, director, AND cast all took turns demeaning the fans that they would eventually rely on (and receive no help from) to earn their box office. Even worse, they attacked AVGN for his objective criticism of the trailer, causing many on the internet to view the filmmakers as petty, unethical, and ruthless.
And you NEVER bring politics into the situation, which Feig did despite Sony trying to stop him. Amongst both Democrats and Republicans, Hillary is hated by millions as the second worst presidential candidate ever (behind Trump) and vehemently supporting her is sure to cause boycott from her MANY detractors.
That's why this movie tanked at the end of the day. Even if the film's quality is poor, it would have still made far more at the box office if Feig, Sony, and McCarthy didn't alienate millions of potential customers with their misandrist pro-Hillary marketing campaign before the film's release.
Any smart person would know that even if you are knowingly making a lazy reboot for a cash grab, even if the fans know it, you do everything you can to ensure the fans that they might enjoy your product, because they are your customers. The entire point of rebooting a cash cow franchise is to milk any remaining money out of prior customers of the franchise. You don't alter the appeal of the product, and thus the reason the customers originally bought the product, and then insult them before the film even premieres. Just like Trank, Sony, Pascal, and Feig made the ridiculous mistake of insulting the customers they would need to buy their product, and just like Trank it proved costly.
This film is looking at a $120-170 million loss, and this is at a time when Sony Films is DESPERATE for a success. Heads are going to roll with this one, and considering Tom "Firefly Cancelled" Rothman has the excuse of lowering the budget (yes, the situation is so bad that it made Tom Rothman look good...), that means that Pascal will (rightfully) carry the blame for this disaster.
Pascal was demoted for the Sony hacks, but after this, I can't see Sony keeping her around. As soon as all the final BO comes in and Sony sees exactly how much it lost, Pascal is probably going to get canned completely, and probably blacklisted if Ghostbusters leads to critical jeopardy for Sony Films Division.
As stated, Feig pulled a full on Josh Trank, rebooting a franchise in a way that completely alters the original concept of the franchise, and then taking it personally, acting like a baby, and lashing out at anybody who criticized those alterations. Hopefully his career will be finished after this. Any film he makes will carry the sting of this movie.
Feig, just like Trank, repeatedly acted like an arrogant petulant child towards what ultimately became legitimate criticisms of the movie. He's permanently stained himself with audiences and due to his flop costing Sony over $100 million, I definitely don't see any major studio placing him in charge of a big budget production. He's damaged goods at this point. Just like Trank.
Melissa McCarthy may also take a hit to her career and popularity for her offensive "basement dweller" comments, which made her appear myopic, petty, and arrogant. It will definitely affect her name as a box office draw.
This movie didn't deserve a chance. It was a cash cow product that literally had all original artistic merit sucked out of it via Amy Pascal booting Ivan Reitman, the creator of the franchise, off the film. Unless this film turned out to the Citizen Kane of supernatural comedies, it didn't deserve it's original creator to be booted off and replaced with a mildly successful director who insulted the fans.
I hope it bombs and honestly I hope it bombs so bad that it bankrupts Sony and it's all Pascal's fault. She deserves it for inferring with the artistic process by booting the artist who created the product she wanted to exploit. It's like stealing somebody's invention and then making said invention inoperable, or stealing an artist's masterpiece painting and then scribbling all over it. It's absolutely shameful. Amy Pascal and Paul Feig are going to get theirs for stealing Ivan Reitman's art from him.
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