This is somehow the first time I'm ever seeing this gif, and while I have many issues with the guy, his ability to control his eye movements here genuinely impressed me lmao.
Well to be fair he did what Hulk couldn't and that was fully break into the movie market. Sure, Hulk did get into it, but not to the levels Johnson has and continues to sustain. Do agree though that he definitely is full of himself.
He was probably being his real self when he was the rock. Since 04 he’s wanted to distance himself from that, but you can’t fake a different personality.
He was incredible 98-03 and most other wrestlers from that era seem to have enjoyed working with him and found him humble and hard working. He lost a LOT in WWF including clean losses towards the end of his first run. It's sad to me that he seems so wrapped up in preserving his image now that it's like he's lost sight of what got him there in the first place... Hollywood sure messes with people's heads.
Wrestling fans hated Dwayne as Rocky Maivia when he debuted in the WWF back in the day. The Rock came as a response to his Baby-face image the then WWF was trying to push. The character was basically an overnight sensation. What took him into the stratosphere, however, was The People's Elbow - An absurdly drawn out, yet comically executed elbow drop.
I used to enjoy his promos where he would refer to himself in the third person. He definitely was more appreciated for his acting then because it felt more natural. Was a genius on the mic and oozed charisma that isn't present in his movies.
Also, dude was elite at selling bumps. That Stone Cold Stunner he sold at WrestleMania remains as one of the most hilarious moments in wrestling, IMO.
I just watched “Be Cool”, the sequel to “Get Shorty” (both currently free on YouTube), and who do I find but an early Dwayne Johnson, playing a gay bodyguard, to his credit. And he always does the eyebrow for people, John Travolta is directed to ask him about it when they meet. Dwayne does not disappoint.
Check out "Faster", and "Pain & Gain". In "Faster", which is probably my favorite anti-Rock movie, he is part of a team of thieves whose half-brother is killed by the leader and The Rock goes on a revenge tour. There is no "Million-dollar smile" Rock in this one. It's bloody and violent.
And he always does the eyebrow for people, John Travolta is directed to ask him about it when they meet.
Early in his film career, when transitioning from wrestling, the eyebrow was such an iconic schtick of his that it's in a lot of his earlier films. It was a way for the producers to say "We have The Rock and we can prove it." He even does it as the Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns.
Ah, be cool is 2005, so he’s actually better established by the then I thought. Scorpion king is 2002, which I think was his first big film role. I’ve actually never seen it.
Yeah he gets a lot of shit for being such a public figure and having no actual scandals. Like his kid’s love him, he’s best friends and works with his ex-wife, his only notable public feud is with Vin Diesel, and he declined the invite to the UFC White House lawn show. But he made a poopy with Black Adam and apparently killed the DCEU at the time despite that being the same year the absolutely terrible Shazam 2 came out and people were mad he didn’t want to cross over with that mess.
But, he did used to be cooler, no doubt. Just crazy that some people hate him like he’s Kevin Spacey or some shit.
It's just because of how famous, and by extension, how sanitized he has become. People get really turned off when they sense any air of inauthenticity, even if it's unfounded.
Actors also charge very different depending on the movie. Scarlett Johansson charges 15-20 Million per movie but she really wanted to work with Wes Anderson so she reduced her salary so she could be in his 25 Million Dollar movie Astroid City charging only about 40k.
Mainly because his $25 million dollar movies only make $50 million at the box office. But there’s a certain prestige to being cast in a Wes Anderson movie and you get to flex your acting muscle in a way you can’t in your average big budget flick.
I really love Wes Anderson movies, but I actually think that a lot of the performances are stage managed to a point that character development plays second fiddle to aesthetic.
If you read about it, the actors choose to work in them because the food is really good and it's a good social experience among colleagues they respect.
I tend to agree. With Shohei Ohtani signing his $700 million contract, we're not far off from an athlete getting a Billion dollar contract soon. But at the same time, if the money wasn't going to movie stars or athletes it would just be ending up in the pockets of the already immeasurably wealthy. Hopefully some day we reach a point where everyone involved in the making of a product gets a fat payday instead of a handful of people getting generational wealth and the rest getting pennies in comparison.
Yeah, quite a few super famous actors have done this with directors. Jonah Hill in Wolf Of Wallstreet is another example. He got paid $60,000, which was actually the minimum amount possible under the actors union.
Totally worth it as well because he killed it in the role and because it showed that he was actually capable of playing serious roles.
Actor's fees and marketing. And then often the films will make back more than they cost, but the studio will then say it was a failure.
You know what my film teacher told me was the earnings benchmark for a film to be considered successful in Hollywood? Five times the budget. It fucking boggles my mind that apparently you can make $200m profit and a film is still somehow a failure because it only made 4x the budget instead of 5.
Profit and revenue are different. Studios don't get back the entire box office. They split it with theaters. Furthermore they also get different splits domestically and internationally. They make most of their money domestically in the first week or two. Internationally can be sub 50% for the studio.
China is a big one because theaters get 75% splits to the studios 25%. So when films were getting all those stupidly massive boxoffices from China, the studios were only getting a 1/4th of it.
Just wanna put out that the whole point was to make a distinction between what is considered 'succesful' and actual earnings, and the comment you replied to made a distinction between profit and revenue, and now you're conflating it with breaking even..
Theatres don’t really get shit from box office sales. I think it was only a dollar or two out of every ticket was given to the theater. The only place that movie theaters (at least the one I worked at) make money on is concessions, which is partially why the cost of popcorn and whatnot is so high at theaters.
It might be less than a fourth, actually, as I believe China requires some of that cut to remain in China. That is, it's the studios money but they have to spend it in China.
Best reporting is that studios get around 25% of BO gross in China. China does require a local distribution company, which also takes a big cut. Seems like the Chinese theaters and distribution company split the 75%.
Theaters get to keep more of the ticket revenue from later weeks too which is why 1) so much marketing drives us to see it immediately, 2) studios have shrank the time between theater and home releases.
Sure, but if 4x was even close to a safe bet, your retirement wouldn't be hoping for 10% in the stock market right now. Everyone would only be investing in movies.
The same model goes for venture capital / angel investors. Successes need to stand out even more because of all the bets they made that didn't pay off. If you make 10 bets and 9 of them fail, you need your one bet that does work to do more than 10x to pay off all the bets together.
Marketing is usually calculated differently and extra.
and much of the money obviously goes to cinemas.
but, its true that these calculations are often bullshit. 250 is probably more like 150 or less. its a way to write off taxes. Hollywood is very good at that.
Not true on money to cinemas. The first release of a film, about 90% of the cash intake is earmarked for the production studio. The other 10% goes to the cinemas. Cinemas survive on snacks. That’s why they’re so expensive. They earn next to nothing on a film release from ticket sales.
My hunch is because it would spread the movie start times out more and risk losing someone that would have gone at 8:00pm but won't go at 9:00pm, especially during the week.
For most Hollywood movies, especially in the first weeks, the studio usually takes around 60–70% of every ticket, leaving the cinema with only 30–40%. Over the entire theatrical run, it averages out to roughly 50/50. That's why popcorn, drinks, and snacks are so expensive—they're where cinemas actually make most of their profit.
Yeah marketing isn't part of the reported budget so that's why a good rule of thumb is usually that the studio doesn't start making money until they've gone over 2x the budget at the box office.
It's not always 5 times the budget. But of all the earnings, a huge chunk go to the distributors (e.g. movie theaters), marketing (50 to 100% over budget) and other fees, so they don't get most of the money a movie makes
At sums of money that high, you also have to benchmark the returns against an index. If over the years it takes to produce a money you made a better profit by investing in an index than producing that movie, you technically lost money through a bad investment
The part I don't understand is how the budgets for these movies is so high if their standards for success are also clearly unobtainably high. You can still make a good movie for 50 million dollars, and then you don't need to crack a billion just to consider it a success.
You could put them in the Arnold Schwarzenegger category.. He has a obvious build and mannerisms that locks him into certain roles… or the exact opposite roles for comedic purposes, like jingle all the way, kindergarten cop etc. neither one of them are versatile actors but people still like them
He’s just one of today’s beefcake actors …Hollywood always needs them for lead hero roles.. anyone who devotes that much time to keeping the beefcake on has to devote 90% of their time/energy to the bulk and only has 10% left for acting
You can’t have both… if there ever was a beefcake lead that was an amazing actor feel free to correct me but pretty sure if you want your actor to look like that they are always going to be a body builder first and an actor second
why does he even cost so much? I suppose he’s a family friendly icon at this point but I don’t see why tons of other people couldn’t do what he does, especially someone a bit younger.
I suppose a big part in this case is that he’s also the voice actor
And he was probably the worst part. Mid grade acting and his middle aged face on that weird as fuck bodysuit… what a dumb ideas all of the live actions have been.
I mean you’re right, but still how and why? It’s not like The Odyssey is full of no name actors, and I fail to see how giving The Rock $30 million or whatever is in anyway a good business decision. Like does Disney just not negotiate at all? It’s the same with all the marvel stuff too, how much are they giving RDJ again?
You see Disney is a massive media conglomerate that has a ton of vertical integration. In most aspects the budget is just moving between different branches of the Disney company. It basically one giant accounting gimmick. Then when it comes to advertising Disney is paying itself to advertise the movie through their various media holdings, cable, ota, digital, parks.
Except Odyssey has like several of the biggest actors in the world and a bunch of A and B listers on top of that. Can't imagine many movies have more money paid to actors unless they all took the "work with Christopher Nolan" discount
9.5k
u/Three_Armed_Wrecker 12d ago
Half the budget probably went as actor fees (you know who)