The Audience Picks The Hits...

On screenwriting message boards there are constantly posts about how the Hollywood publicity machine rams bad movies down the throat of the American public, and how some movie the complainer thought was awful made a whole bunch of money due to all of those damned adverts on TV. And that's when I point out some movie like SPEED RACER which had a zillion adverts and tie ins (you can get all kinds of Hot Wheels cars and other toys and even breakfast cereals at the 99 Cents Store... tough the breakfast cereals are probably close to the pull date or maybe radiated so there is no pull date, and when you eat too much you become a 50 Foot Poor Person and destroy Los Angeles). You can't make us see a bad movie. Word Of Mouth is still stronger than all of the adverts in the world.

About a year ago there was an article in one of the trades about how texting was killing opening weekends. It used to be that a bad movie *could be* promoted so well that people would come to see it on opening weekend, and they make some money before the bad Word Of Mouth kicked in. But in this world of high tech information, people are texting their friends who are standing in line for the next showing and telling them to see something else, this film sucks. So the days of promoting the hell out of a bad movie are over. TERMINATOR: SALVATION had a serious drop from Friday to Sunday... and kept dropping.

Word Of Mouth - the audience - rules.

And proof is in the Friday box office estimates from Box Office Mojo...

FRIDAY ESTIMATES
1. The Hangover $10,435,000
2. Up $8,850,000
3. The Taking of Pelham 123 $8,250,000

No stars, no CGI (even the removed tooth was real), and no huge ad campaign... but HANGOVER beat this week's hyped new film TAKING OF PELHAM 123. How is that possible?

Word Of Mouth. People told their friends it was funny over the week, the friends said, "I'm gonna check that out Friday."

I have a tip on the website about *not* looking at all of the things you hate about a hit film you thought was crap, but looking at why that film touched the audience - and learn that lesson. It may be the difference between a fun, hopeful empty-headed sci-fi film and a dark, downer empty-headed sci-fi film. It may even just be the spectacle involved - if a movie shows us something amazing that we've never seen before, that may generate good Word Of Mouth. Of course, as writers we *created* whatever that jaw-dropping spectacle was. We imagined it first... and the audience is responding to our creation. There are lessons to be learned in hits you didn't like...

The first one is - Hollywood is powerless, the audience is in control.

Classes On CD - Recession Sale!

- Bill

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Voice Over Narration and your typical monkey funeral.
Yesterday’s Dinner: Grand Slam at Dennys with the Friday movie guys.
MOVIES: TAKING OF PELHAM 123 - Good, more on it later... would have been better WITHOUT Tony Scott directing. Can someone get him to go decaf or kick cocaine?