In defense of "The Bucket List"

Question

Well, my oldest sister (whose husband suffers from an Alzheimer's-like disease) got some time off and went to the movies. She loves Morgan Freeman and was relieved that Jack Nicholson wasn't portrayed as some kind of post-Medicaid sex machine. She's looking for uplifting movies these days and I can't fault her for that.
She liked the movie.
I'm not here to rehash the script or the movie; I'd like to think about the deal.
Yeah, it was obviously written for Freeman and Nicholson. And yeah, after two weeks it earned the basic cost of hiring Freeman and Nicholson and Reiner and making the movie.
But it seems like $40 Million is a lot of money to invest to win back a couple hundred grand.
So could this movie have been a tremendous success without Freeman/Nicholson? Take that guy who is the spokesperson for those Allstate Insurance commercials. Or a generic curmudgeon such as Fred Thompson? Same movie. Same script. Same director. Same budget... except, of course, the Allstate guy and Thompson would've worked for scale. Could "The Bucket List" have been a "hit" based on the story or the script?

So you've got the question: is "The Bucket List" a script that can make a marinally-profitable Hollywood movie, or did the script have the chops to be a blockbuster indie? Put the same $5 Million or so into the production values and don't pay Freeman/Nicholson their combined $40 Million fee, and would you have the same movie? Based on the script?

If the script is so strong, a $5 Million production budget (which is, basically, what it was) could well have earned $15-20 Million at the box office. But with Freeman/Nicholson, it's struggling to go a couple of hundred grand over bottom-line costs. With a $45 Million box office.

It's hard to figure. I've always wondered about Warner Bros' first conception of "Cassablanca" with Ron Reagan and Ann Sheridan..

Joe Myers
"Play it, Sam! I paid for this piano!"
.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]I'm not here to rehash the script or the movie; I'd like to think about the deal. Yeah, it was obviously written for Freeman and Nicholson. And yeah, after two weeks it earned the basic cost of hiring Freeman and Nicholson and Reiner and making the movie. But it seems like $40 Million is a lot of money to invest to win back a couple hundred grand. So could this movie have been a tremendous success without Freeman/Nicholson? Take that guy who is the spokesperson for those Allstate Insurance commercials. Or a generic curmudgeon such as Fred Thompson? Same movie. Same script. Same director. Same budget... except, of course, the Allstate guy and Thompson would've worked for scale. Could "The Bucket List" have been a "hit" based on the story or the script? So you've got the question: is "The Bucket List" a script that can make a marginally-profitable Hollywood movie, or did the script have the chops to be a blockbuster indie? Put the same $5 Million or so into the production values and don't pay Freeman/Nicholson their combined $40 Million fee, and would you have the same movie? Based on the script? If the script is so strong, a $5 Million production budget (which is, basically, what it was) could well have earned $15-20 Million at the box office. But with Freeman/Nicholson, it's struggling to go a couple of hundred grand over bottom-line costs. With a $45 Million box office. It's hard to figure. I've always wondered about Warner Bros' first conception of "Cassablanca" with Ron Reagan and Ann Sheridan.... Joe Myers "Play it, Sam! I paid for this piano!"[/nq]
When you're a guy with a camcorder, there's a reason you're not making romcoms. Blood and *** are exploitable elements and you can get them for cheap, so if cheap is all you have to spend, you make a blood and *** kind of movie because that genre has an audience that will show up and watch, and pay for the priviledge, even if that's pretty much all you have to offer.
"Star-drivien vehicle" is another genre, no less so than action/comedy or Merchant/Ivory OscarBait. Would The Bucket List have made $15-$20M with Fred Thompson and the ex-President? No. Not in a million years, because it never would have been made with those two, any more than Texas Chainsaw Massacre IX would be made without, well, chainsaws.

The Bucket List hasn't done all that well, all things considered. I haven't seen it or even read it (I might catch it on DVD but it's not generally the kind of thing I like) but just from the conversations here, it seems like the script was written as a senior buddy picture, with two juicy roles for two stars to do a little dignified (?) scenery-chewing. Nobody makes that kind of film starring That Guy You Used To Watch On TV and Oh, Him - Wasn't He In That Thing We Liked? because no one goes to see that film. They go to see Jack Being Jack and Morgan The Wise Old Negro, doing what they do.

One man's opinion.

Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary
Steven

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Well, my oldest sister (whose husband suffers from an Alzheimer's-like disease) got some time off and went to the movies. ... first conception of "Cassablanca" with Ron Reagan and Ann Sheridan.. Joe Myers "Play it, Sam! I paid for this piano!"[/nq]
That's just kind of how it works.
A friend of mine has a movie shooting right now. Started off and just a $5 million nice little indie.
Then Richard Gere read it.
Now he's in it with Joan Allen.
Budget went to the moon compared to the original.
It's a family pic, will probably make back the budget, maybe a lot more, but maybe not.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Well, my oldest sister (whose husband suffers from an Alzheimer's-like disease) got some time off and went to the movies. She loves Morgan Freeman and was relieved that Jack Nicholson wasn't portrayed as some kind of post-Medicaid *** machine. She's looking for uplifting movies these days and I can't fault her for that. She liked the movie. I'm not here to rehash the script or the movie; I'd like to think about the deal. Yeah, it was obviously written for Freeman and Nicholson. And yeah, after two weeks it earned the basic cost of hiring Freeman and Nicholson and Reiner and making the movie. But it seems like $40 Million is a lot of money to invest to win back a couple hundred grand. So could this movie have been a tremendous success without Freeman/Nicholson? Take that guy who is the spokesperson for those Allstate Insurance commercials. Or a generic curmudgeon such as Fred Thompson? Same movie. Same script. Same director. Same budget... except, of course, the Allstate guy and Thompson would've worked for scale. Could "The Bucket List" have been a "hit" based on the story or the script? So you've got the question: is "The Bucket List" a script that can make a marinally-profitable Hollywood movie, or did the script have the chops to be a blockbuster indie? Put the same $5 Million or so into the production values and don't pay Freeman/Nicholson their combined $40 Million fee, and would you have the same movie? Based on the script? If the script is so strong, a $5 Million production budget (which is, basically, what it was) could well have earned $15-20 Million at the box office. But with Freeman/Nicholson, it's struggling to go a couple of hundred grand over bottom-line costs. With a $45 Million box office. It's hard to figure. I've always wondered about Warner Bros' first conception of "Cassablanca" with Ron Reagan and Ann Sheridan.... Joe Myers "Play it, Sam! I paid for this piano!" .[/nq]
You put your finger on it when you said that it was written for Nicholson and Freeman.
This thing was conceived as a star vehicle not as a small indie film.
It's appeal what appeal it has, is dependent on having major stars in those roles.
Not every movie not even every big budget movie depends on that.
A lot of the big epic fantasies and super hero movies, even those with recognizable stars, aren't "star vehicles" in the way that Bucket List is. While they certain expect to have that "recognition factor" in order to produce a certain comfort and familiarity factor in the audience, they depend on other things to bring in that audience.

But take Julia Roberts away from Erin Brokovitch and what do you have? A TV movie.
Without her, that movie could never have had any existence as a theatrical motion picture.
This movie is clearly in that category. Without major stars, it simply doesn't have enough about it that's special, on it's own, to justify a theatrical existence. I'm not talking about good, bad, or indifferent in critical terms (any more than I'm talking about the script for Erin Brokovitch in the same way). I'm talking about how it is viewed a property with commercial potential. In this case, it's "specialness" as a script is that it was wonderful "star bait" it's got great parts for two older stars say, oh a star like Jack Nicholson, and another star like, for instance, Morgan Freeman.

But if they hadn't responded, or if comparable stars had not it would never have been made at any budget.
NMS

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Yeah, it was obviously written for Freeman and Nicholson. Â And yeah, after two weeks it earned the basic cost of hiring Freeman and Nicholson and Reiner and making the movie. But it seems like $40 Million is a lot of money to invest to win back a couple hundred grand.[/nq]
So how do you figure a "couple hundred grand?" Are you a studio accountant? The movie has already grossed close to $60 million domestically and is still strong in the theaters and probably will be for a few more weeks. I'm guessing it's going to gross about $30 million more domestically. And then there is (I suspect) a foreign release scheduled. Then DVDs.
[nq:1]So could this movie have been a tremendous success without Freeman/Nicholson? Â Take that guy who is the spokesperson for those Allstate Insurance commercials. Â Or a generic curmudgeon such as Fred Thompson? Â Same movie. Â Same script. Â Same director. Â Same budget... except, of course, the Allstate guy and Thompson would've worked for scale. Â Could "The Bucket List" have been a "hit" based on the story or the script?[/nq]
Moot point. It wasn't written for the Allstate guy and Thompson.
[nq:1]So you've got the question: is "The Bucket List" a script that can make a marinally-profitable Hollywood movie, or did the script have the chops to be a blockbuster indie? Â Put the same $5 Million or so into the production values and don't pay Freeman/Nicholson their combined $40 Million fee, and would you have the same movie? Â Based on the script? If the script is so strong, a $5 Million production budget (which is, basically, what it was) could well have earned $15-20 Million at the box office. Â But with Freeman/Nicholson, it's struggling to go a couple of hundred grand over bottom-line costs. Â With a $45 Million box office.[/nq]
Unless I'm mistaken, the production budget includes the talent. (And where have you read that either Freeman or Nicholson charged $20 million to make this movie?) The story was sold to the actors. They must have seen something in the script that attracted them. It's not like Freeman and Nicholson are incapable of finding work.
Morgan Freeman thought the script was strong that's why he took the part.

~~
It shouldn't come as a big surprise that Freeman took a straightforward approach when interpreting his role for "The Bucket List." Quite simply, while some method actors may have, say, treated the film as their last to get into the frame of mind of their character, Freeman said what he does all simply boils down to the demands of the script.

"I depend heavily on the writer telling me where to be, how to be and who to be," explained Freeman. "If the writer is successful in his job, then I will not have much to do than say the words."
The bonus is, the Oscar-winning Freeman said, if a script is powerful enough, that those words can also impact you in a personal sort of way and from "The Bucket List" came, well, a bucket-load of introspect. ~~
http://www.wmtw.com/entertainment/15012245/detail.html

RonB
"There's a story there...somewhere"

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Used To Watch On TV and Oh, Him - Wasn't He In That Thing We Liked? because no one goes to see that film. They go to see Jack Being Jack and Morgan The Wise Old Negro, doing what they do.[/nq]
A little insulting there Steven. Morgan Freeman plays Morgan as much as Jack plays Jack. So what, exactly, does the "Wide Old Negro" mean? Is that Obama's problem? He doesn't shuck 'n' jive enough?

The Peripatetic Samurai Robot

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]So how do you figure a "couple hundred grand?" Are you a studio accountant? The movie has already grossed close ... going to gross about $30 million more domestically. And then there is (I suspect) a foreign release scheduled. Then DVDs.[/nq]
Haven't seen it (not my sort of thing) and didn't read the script when it was floated on the group (I smelled a trap. I haven't investigated the timing but I'm confident the deal was already closed before the script was floated here. These things rarely make the trades within weeks of deals being made.)
But that being said, I suspect this movie is still a ways from profitability.
(Which, as I've said before, is not a mark of quality one way or the other).
Nicholson and Freeman took big up-front paychecks and almost certainly are first-dollar gross players. Rob Reiner is also not cheap, despite a couple of losers in a row.
Plus, they've been marketting the *&^! out of it. Lots of billboards for it around town. They've been running lots of guild screenings for it - no free DVDs, but I've gotten several mailers on this film. Major ad buys on national TV for weeks leading up to it - not just the usual one-week run-up on national TV. That money comes off the top of the distributor's gross (which, bear in mind, is, at most 80% of the BO at this point, and probably less in view of the slow rollout.)

And yeah, there'll be DVD money, sure. But the challenge with a movie like this is that you expect it to do almost nothing internationally. So while something like "POTC: At World's End" was almost certainly hugely profitable with the domestic gross barely topping the production budget, with something like "The Bucket List" (no foreign, no action figures) you're going to need to see 2-3x (and probably closer to the latter) the production budget to safely assume that its in the black.

I suspect - and this is my intuition more than anything else - that they were really hoping for nominations to give this the boost it needed into profitability. Without that, they're hoping the BO holds for a few more weeks and it'll be close enough that nobody'll care that much. Without much competition this month, that just might happen.

(Should this movie ultimately be considered a failure - and I don't think you'll hear that word, but rather "disappointment" because it's not going to miss by that much - it's wrong, FWIW, to lay that at Zackham's feet. He clearly did his job - which was to write a script which would attract major actors. As we keep saying in the current WGA negotiations, the writer can't ultimately be held responsible for the skill with which everyone else does their jobs, and that includes the guy who came up with the budget and the BO projections which justified it.)
-Ron

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]So could this movie have been a tremendous success without Freeman/Nicholson? Take that guy who is the spokesperson for those Allstate Insurance commercials. Or a generic curmudgeon such as Fred Thompson? Same movie. Same script. Same director. Same budget... except, of course, the Allstate guy and Thompson would've worked for scale. Could "The Bucket List" have been a "hit" based on the story or the script?[/nq]
Yeah but you would need an incredible director, and an equally incredible musical score. And the director would have to weild a significant amount of power. That freed-up 40 million can be used on the screen. And if there arent filmmakers that think they could make a great story about 2 old farts that go around the world in 80 days for 50+ million out there than we might as well all just quit.

Hollywood has all but forgotten blockbusters happen because people want other people to experience something you cant get anywhere else. Titanic doesnt work at home. I dont care how big your Plasma is. Cameron, Lucas, Raimi - the big dogs dont need big stars they make little stars bigger. It doesnt work the other way around. It certainly hasn't worked lately for Spielberg.
I didnt go to the Orange Bowl this saturday to watch Dan Marino and Dolphins legends play the Hurricanes legends in the final game ever in the OB. (Canes won 65 - 58 or something) Hollywood thinks the other way. They think people still want to see Dan Marino. Marino has two shows, one on CBS, and one on HBO. I watch neither.

I watch to see the new Marino. I could have been screaming my head off in the Dolphins war room, "Draft Tom Brady, Draft Tom Brady, he's gonna be BETTER THAN MARINO" But they didnt, infact all 32 teams passed on Tom Brady 5 times. 5 different times, Brady was available, and 5 times every team selected somebody else.
The NFL is bad. 5 QBs were selected ahead of Marino. Hollywood is worse. They are still worshipping at the alter of Dan Marino. Thats what Jack Nicholson is - He's Marino, once great no doubt, but now tired, self aware, self cannibalistic, and derivitive.

Hollywood is **** bent on forcing certain actors down Americas throat. I can say it doesnt work, somebody will just shove ticket sale stats in my face, whatevs. The stars of the future are all around us, they are on TV, slasher movies, romcoms, they got bit parts, or are doing stand up, wrestling...
You find Tom Brady, you start throwing the ball deep. That goes for football as well as making movies about old farts going around the world in 80 days. You just cannot convince me that there arent two old farts with the chops, looks, and charisma to warm the hearts of viewers. Cause if you believe that, you might as well just quit, cause its game over.
Oranse

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]So could this movie have been a tremendous success without Freeman/Nicholson? Take that guy who is the spokesperson for those Allstate Insurance commercials. Or a generic curmudgeon such as Fred Thompson? Same movie. Same script. Same director. Same budget... except, of course, the Allstate guy and Thompson would've worked for scale. Could "The Bucket List" have been a "hit" based on the story or the script?[/nq]
Yeah but you would need an incredible director, and an equally incredible musical score. And the director would have to weild a significant amount of power. That freed-up 40 million can be used on the screen. And if there arent filmmakers that think they could make a great story about 2 old farts that go around the world in 80 days for 50+ million out there than we might as well all just quit.

Hollywood has all but forgotten blockbusters happen because people want other people to experience something you cant get anywhere else. Titanic doesnt work at home. I dont care how big your Plasma is. Cameron, Lucas, Raimi - the big dogs dont need big stars they make little stars bigger. It doesnt work the other way around. It certainly hasn't worked lately for Spielberg.
I didnt go to the Orange Bowl this saturday to watch Dan Marino and Dolphins legends play the Hurricanes legends in the final game ever in the OB. (Canes won 65 - 58 or something) Hollywood thinks the other way. They think people still want to see Dan Marino. Marino has two shows, one on CBS, and one on HBO. I watch neither.

I watch to see the new Marino. I could have been screaming my head off in the Dolphins war room, "Draft Tom Brady, Draft Tom Brady, he's gonna be BETTER THAN MARINO" But they didnt, infact all 32 teams passed on Tom Brady 5 times. 5 different times, Brady was available, and 5 times every team selected somebody else.
The NFL is bad. 5 QBs were selected ahead of Marino. Hollywood is worse. They are still worshipping at the alter of Dan Marino. Thats what Jack Nicholson is - He's Marino, once great no doubt, but now tired, self aware, self cannibalistic, and derivitive.

Hollywood is **** bent on forcing certain actors down Americas throat. I can say it doesnt work, somebody will just shove ticket sale stats in my face, whatevs. The stars of the future are all around us, they are on TV, slasher movies, romcoms, they got bit parts, or are doing stand up, wrestling...
You find Tom Brady, you start throwing the ball deep. That goes for football as well as making movies about old farts going around the world in 80 days. You just cannot convince me that there arent two old farts with the chops, looks, and charisma to warm the hearts of viewers. Cause if you believe that, you might as well just quit, cause its game over.
Oranse

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]But if they hadn't responded, or if comparable stars had not it would never have been made at any budget.[/nq]
Which was my original point... long ago and many threads back.

I would not be interested in a movie about two old guys dying.

- Bill

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]But if they hadn't responded, or if comparable stars had not it would never have been made at any budget.[/nq]
[nq:1]Which was my original point... long ago and many threads back. I would not be interested in a movie about two old guys dying. - Bill[/nq]
Oh, the humanity.

In defense of "The Bucket List"

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