I would love for someone to go back and find every single blockbuster film and see if they broke even and by how much. This is just getting ridiculous. Many of the budgetary problems facing SR are not Singer's fault. Much of what all these articles cite as pushing the budget over is:
Marketing Costs
Pre-Production Costs (meaning the aborted attempts for the past 10 years)
Singer can't be beholden to those costs as his fault. Yes, cutting a 10 million dollar sequence was reckless. However, the above costs are for WB and WB to own. They spent a bunch of money on a marketing campaign that DID NOT WORK -- many people on June 28th had no idea Superman Returns was coming out. They moved and bumped the date around, etc. etc.
WB is perhaps acknowledging that THEY didn't give Singer the support he needed post-production, unlike many fans here who just like to lump the entirety of the Superman franchise on Singer's plate, despite their being many studio execs, directors, years invovled.
WB dropped the ball and perhaps has the intelligence to separate what THEY did wrong from what SINGER did wrong and how those wrongs flow into their budgetary profit. In this case, the one thing that WB is not saying is "We bombed on the marketing front..." They could throw Singer under the bus.
Nothing WB or Singer can say will appease anyone. What people want to hear here is "We screwed up. Singer needs to go work at McDonald's and get off this sequel! Sorry, guys."
But what many aren't realizing is that WB has, and continues to be, surprisingly pleased by this movie (confirmed by both outside sources and inside sources). They like the film. Period. Singer made a film they enjoy and think is a respectable piece of cinema. They know he can do it and do it very well. They may have issues they want to iron out in the sequel. However, they're pleased and they want Singer on board. Also, WB and Singer do have a surprising amount of high approval from critics (who do count btw).
So, they have an A-list director, a marginal profit that'll grow with merchandising and DVD sales, a critically-acclaimed film....? So, what exactly in there is a deterent to pushing for a sequel? Just because they didn't make AS MUCH money as expected doesn't mean 1) the film is bad or 2) that they are displeased with Singer. There are a whole spectrum of considerations outside even of the movie quality that play into how well a film does at the box office.
That is why, unlike some, I choose not to relegate the quality of a movie to mere numbers. You have to judge it against a higher objective standard. This is where critical analysis comes into play since many respectable critics (unlike those at CHUD.com who just make Chris Reeve paralysis jokes) use this same standard, a standard respected by film schools, filim guilds, and film academies. I understand that many may not know, nevermind understand, this standard, and even then the application can be fickle (thus why we have debates at the Oscar), but there are nevertheless ways to assess a movies art quality.
Otherwise, let's talk about how the Vincent Van Gogh's paintings are piece of crap and ****ty art. Why? Well, because during their time, Van Gogh was not nearly as respected nor as profitable as his art form should've allowed. Yet, today his paintings are revered as masterpieces, priced in the thousands.
This is what happens when art becomes a matter of mere dollars -- you miss the entire point.
This is what many do on these boards. Miss the point. They want to relegate the conversation to dollar amounts, capitalist platitudes of "if you don't like it, deal with it...," but the fact of the matter is: art is art and doesn't require one's monetary approval to be so.
I am not naive enough to think that dollar signs don't play a role in making a movie. However, they rarely play a role in judging a film, and when they do, it's in the limited form of "they made this movie on that little money" or "this film had this much money and still looks cheap" -- and neither of those are really story, dramatic, character critiques. Money cannot make a character come to life (good acting does), money cannot make a story real and passionate (good writing can).
This is why talk of B.O. numbers, drudging up old production costs to make it all look larger than it is, rolling in marketing costs, is so much crap. If I had the time, or the inclination, to actually find o ther movies who barely topped off but are regarded as masterpieces, I would. And going to a website like SingerSucks, and using that as a source of authority, is rather laughable.
Variety and Hollywood Reporter are all respected media outlets and have both citied that SR will make a profit, fully acknowledging all along that it did not make as MUCH as wanted.
Plus, WB are businessmen, you're right! However, its funny that no one hear talks about how business usually invest. Short term losses in the pursuit of long term gains. You don't think WB is sitting there knowing this, you don't think this isn't gonig to be a simple economics principle that every stock holder who -- as one said, "They'll have to answre to" -- will already understand. They had to reintegrate a bygone character into a new society, overcoming a unprecedantly erratic box office for the past two years, Pirates, etc. They did that, and they are INVESTING in Singer and his vision of Superman. Now, on this idea of vision...
Why is there all this whining about people not wanting Singer to return? It's not beacuse of the Box Office, or the numbers, or that WB didn't make a proft. They will, have, and will continue to. They've reintroduced Superman, will bank on future sequels, will be able to launch new toy lines, clothing lines, DVD lines, DirectoDVD cartoons, serial cartoons -- to a whole new generation whose learned about Superman all over again.
They've made their profit. So, since many seem UNABLE to see that, they have to twist the facts into "unreality." Deny, screaming at the top of their lungs that the sky is not blue when it most certainly is and always will be. Why? Because to state their real reason for not wanting Singer to come back, to really prove their point as to why he shouldn't, the best they can come up with is "I didn't like SInger's vision." They can't say it's a bad movie, it's not. But, they can say it's not a "Good Superman film." Which then, you have an entire myraid of opinions as to what constitutes a good Superman film and everyone is relegate to mere opinion.
They don't want that. They don't want to just be "opinions." They want to be facts. And when the facts contradict their opinions, you get what has resulted on these boards for the past two months.
