what the studio plans on being a tentpole sci-fi franchise.
This means the project will have a huge budget and the best studio hands working on it. A "tentpole" movie is one in which a studio bets that it will make enough money at the box office and through video to not only win back its own costs, but "cover" a good share of the studio's other projects for that fiscal year. Usually it does this through sequels and/or spin-offs--and through merchandising and licensing, which has been a cash-cow for such movies since Jaws nearly thirty five years ago. Here's a related quote from IESB.net--
...Usually a studio like Warner Bros. likes to have 2 to 3 tent pole films scheduled for release during the summer (or films they considered to be tent poles even if the box office results didn't agree). In 2008 the tent pole films were Speed Racer, Get Smart and The Dark Knight. In 2007, it was Harry Potter and Ocean's 13 (300 ended up kicking major ass as well in March).
But, the only one real tent pole Warner Bros. has in production for the summer of 2009 is McG's reboot of the Terminator franchise Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins starring Christian Bale (stay tuned for some major story details from that film within the next few weeks).
Studio sources have told the IESB that for the last few months WB execs have been in a mild state of panic not knowing for sure which films they could greenlight and get ready to go come that looming summer date.
The problem is not a new one, even late last year WB was still missing one tent pole when they had Justice League: Mortal in pre-production alongside Terminator. But we all know the superhero ensemble pic was put on hold leaving McG's reboot as the lone survivor. ...
The article that was cut from also details WB's other pending feature projects, including several superhero/old cartoon-based movies. The problem is that Speed Racer was a relative bomb, so Robotech may be in danger of overcompensating in order to win an audience.
This means the project will have a huge budget and the best studio hands working on it. A "tentpole" movie is one in which a studio bets that it will make enough money at the box office and through video to not only win back its own costs, but "cover" a good share of the studio's other projects for that fiscal year. Usually it does this through sequels and/or spin-offs--and through merchandising and licensing, which has been a cash-cow for such movies since Jaws nearly thirty five years ago. Here's a related quote from IESB.net--
...Usually a studio like Warner Bros. likes to have 2 to 3 tent pole films scheduled for release during the summer (or films they considered to be tent poles even if the box office results didn't agree). In 2008 the tent pole films were Speed Racer, Get Smart and The Dark Knight. In 2007, it was Harry Potter and Ocean's 13 (300 ended up kicking major ass as well in March).
But, the only one real tent pole Warner Bros. has in production for the summer of 2009 is McG's reboot of the Terminator franchise Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins starring Christian Bale (stay tuned for some major story details from that film within the next few weeks).
Studio sources have told the IESB that for the last few months WB execs have been in a mild state of panic not knowing for sure which films they could greenlight and get ready to go come that looming summer date.
The problem is not a new one, even late last year WB was still missing one tent pole when they had Justice League: Mortal in pre-production alongside Terminator. But we all know the superhero ensemble pic was put on hold leaving McG's reboot as the lone survivor. ...
The article that was cut from also details WB's other pending feature projects, including several superhero/old cartoon-based movies. The problem is that Speed Racer was a relative bomb, so Robotech may be in danger of overcompensating in order to win an audience.
