The REAL reason Pluto Nash bombed.

[Chadzilla]

Hollywood insiders are 'stunned' by the devestating box office (2.2 million) of the in development from the 1980s Pluto Nash.  Just who is to blame?

The Internet...here is a brief clip of the Cinescape article....

As entertainment attorney Skip Brittenham, whose clients include both big actors and production houses, was quoted, the Internet is “exercising a growing tyranny.”

"New studies show that roughly one-third of the typical audience that sees a movie in its first weekend has logged onto the Web sites, read the gossip and perhaps even seen the trailer," he said. "Their attitudes have already been formed well before the release date."


Hey guys, we're TYRANTS!  Whoo-hoo!

You know I saw the trailer at the theaters and, quite frankly, the campaign made this movie look less funny than watching George W. Bush's colonscopy video.  As far as the gossip and rumors go, that seldom sways me.  I'll watch a movie I want irregardless of what others think of it, but some look to be the price of a rental and nothing more.

Geez, THEY make a bad movie and the reason it flops is somebody else's fault, just how distanced from reality can you get?

[Fearless Freep]

Geez, THEY make a bad movie and the reason it flops is somebody else's fault, just how distanced from reality can you get?

They make a bad movie and the reason it flops is because it's already been tipped that it's a bad movie.  Maybe people aren't being suckered into movies as easily anymore

[Flangepart]

"Reality....we don need no stinking reality!"
....Like politics, the movie biz is predicated on the ego. What? OUR fault? Gad, how absurd, you poor unenlightened soul...............
....That Trailer just did NOT give me confidence. My spider sense was tingling to beat the band. I rearly fails me.
...BTW..."Entertainment Attorney"....don't that sound Why does that sound, oh, just wrong? My definition of such? Harvy Birdman!

[John]

I've said it before and I'll say it again; Studio & network execs are completely incapable of judging quality. To them, there's no difference in quality between Pluto Nash and Star Wars.

[Squishy]

Too bloody right mate.

Perfect example: FOX's "Futurama" was a hit in the ratings, is a critical success and frequent Emmy-nominee, has a worldwide fanbase, sells merchandise out the yin-yang...but FOX shuffled it off to a timeslot where no show can survive (where it is up against "60 Minutes," "Disney," and is constantly preempted by sports) and done everything in its power to destroy it--without cancelling it outright, in deference to the show's creator (and regular FOX savior) Matt Groening.

Why? They don't own the rights to it. Also, they don't "get it." They wanted "The Simpsons In Outer Space"--what's THIS s***?

A**holes.

Getting back to "Pluto Nash"--Eddie Murphy survived "Holy Man," he'll survive this, as long as Disney gives him another venue for multiple roles and fart jokes. But when a studio sits a movie on the bench for years, they already know it sucks wet poop and is doomed to failure. Don't blame us, studios--quit making crap.

[Foywonder]

Well, when the release date gets pushed back about 2 years, there's plenty of reason to speculate why that is.

When the movie isn't pre-screened for actual movie critics to review it, that sends another message.

When the star of the film doesn't even bother to go out and promote the movie, that sends a very clear message.

Nice to see someone else using Joel Schumacher's b***hing about "an unpoliced internet" that supposedly killed BATMAN & ROBIN. To this day, I still makes jokes about that crack. As if Harry Knowles ruined the Batman franchise by having the nerve to report that people were actually getting up and walking out of the movie during test screenings.

Heck, from what Moriarty told me earlier this year, there were actually some execs at the studio who didn't even know they had produced a movie called PLUTO NASH!

[John]

>Perfect example: FOX's "Futurama" was a hit in the ratings, is a critical success
>and frequent Emmy-nominee, has a worldwide fanbase, sells merchandise out
>the yin-yang...but FOX shuffled it off to a timeslot where no show can survive
>(where it is up against "60 Minutes," "Disney," and is

 Well, there's another part of the equation too; The only value a network considers a show to have is in how many viewers it can steal from other networks. If a show gets moderately good ratings, they instantly start planning what shows they can pit it against to try and win more viewers. If it fails in that time slot, then the show is considered worthless. It's like a game of battling tops, the network gets a good one so they immediately send it up against what the other networks have. If it knocks them out of the ring, great, if it gets knocked out, they chuck it and go looking for a new top. They don't care what value a show might have on its own, only what it can do to the other networks.

[AndyC]

Exactly. Rather than leaving a reasonably successful show in a time slot where it has no competition and attracts a decent audience, it goes up against another good show on a rival network. This is why TV fluctuates between times when we can't decide what to watch and long stretches when there is bugger all worth watching. These people don't understand that if the shows are spread out in some thoughtful way, everybody can win. These days, business is less about finding a need and filling it than it is about trying to take what the other guy has. The result: an overload of the same thing at the same time, and huge unfulfilled needs.

[AndyC]

As for Pluto Nash, I can't say whether it was bad or not. I didn't see it. However, the way its release was handled made it look like a piece of crap that the studio was ashamed of. Why do they still believe it is better not to have an advance screening for critics? It generates far more bad press when the critics can't see it. Bad reviews don't necessarily hurt a movie. Some people don't care what the critics say, myself included. When the studio doesn't have faith in their own product, however, that sets off alarm bells for a lot of people. If the folks responsible for Pluto Nash had just put on their best poker faces and conducted business as usual, it probably would have done better. I'm not saying it would have done well, just that it might not have bombed so badly.