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Sony's financial troubles

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Sony's financial troubles

Postby Glumpuddle » Feb 08, 2017 6:29 pm

Sony Pictures lost almost a billion dollars last quarter are are looking for a new CEO. Wondering how the situation might affect The Silver Chair.

The four movies released by the pictures division during the quarter – “Inferno,” “Arrival,” “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” and “Passengers” – grossed only $363 million worldwide. That is barely a third of the $1.04 billion generated during the same period the year before, fueled by James Bond title “Spectre.”

http://variety.com/2017/biz/asia/losses ... 201976056/

Worth keeping an eye on.
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Re: Sony's financial troubles

Postby The Rose-Tree Dryad » Feb 08, 2017 7:24 pm

One thing that crosses my mind when looking at those failed titles is that they don't have any name recognition. (Well, they don't to this un-pop cultured person, at least. :P) Narnia is an established franchise with a fan base and a market. People will be interested in it to some degree just because of the name. While it may not rake in huge amounts of cash, it seems to me to be the more conservative option compared to these other ventures in the last quarter.

I would be surprised if they ended up moving away from SC in light of this news, just because it doesn't strike me as a risky venture. On the contrary, it seems like the kind of safe bet they might be looking for... although that could spell trouble for those of us who don't want an uninspired, mail-it-in, "tame" adaptation just meant to cash in on name recognition.

My hope is that this won't mean much aside from a slightly smaller budget, which is something I wouldn't mind much anyway if it means that we get a more creative team and a film that's aimed at more of a niche audience. Fingers crossed that whoever becomes the next CEO is a huge Narnia fan. :P
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Re: Sony's financial troubles

Postby narnia fan 7 » Feb 09, 2017 10:46 am

I know the past couple of years have been kind of rough for Sony at the box office especially for their bigger movies.
So I'm not sure how this might affect Silver Chair, my first thought is that it might not affect it all that much as far as it getting made, as Rose pointed out Narnia is a name people know and something they might consider a safer bet whether or not that's a good thing I don't know. It may affect how much Sony is willing to spend on SC though I not too concerned about that since we've been expecting a relatively lower budget.
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Re: Sony's financial troubles

Postby Impending Doom » Feb 09, 2017 10:41 pm

I've voiced my concerns regarding Sony before on these forums before and debated whether or not to make a thread dedicated to it so thanks for kick-starting the discussion.

After thinking about it, the only area where this may affect Silver Chair is with how much they are willing to put into the marketing budget (Sony is only distributing). Are they going to hold back and play it safe or will they go all in and try to get that mass audience? That's where most of my questions lie.

Creatively, I'm feeling quite confident given what Gresham has said about working with them. I've noticed that Sony's reputation for being very controlling have stemmed from Columbia Pictures not TriStar Pictures (who are partially financing SC) which I think is interesting. Both are owned by Sony but Tristar is a relatively new production company and they're in the midst of rebranding themselves as a home for filmmaker-driven literary films. One thing you won't see is Spiderman, Ghostbusters, or Smurfs films being developed here. Those 'mainstream' movies that are Sony's property go to Columbia division of films.

I believe it was a very intentional decision by the Lewis Estate to partner with Tristar. If this was a Columbia Picture i'd be far more concerned given that they tend to strangle the films' creative minds with different mandates.

Sorry if that last bit was a bit off topic... :ymblushing:
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Re: Sony's financial troubles

Postby Reepicheep775 » Feb 10, 2017 9:02 pm

Impending Doom wrote:I've noticed that Sony's reputation for being very controlling have stemmed from Columbia Pictures not TriStar Pictures (who are partially financing SC) which I think is interesting. Both are owned by Sony but Tristar is a relatively new production company and they're in the midst of rebranding themselves as a home for filmmaker-driven literary films. One thing you won't see is Spiderman, Ghostbusters, or Smurfs films being developed here. Those 'mainstream' movies that are Sony's property go to Columbia division of films.

I believe it was a very intentional decision by the Lewis Estate to partner with Tristar. If this was a Columbia Picture i'd be far more concerned given that they tend to strangle the films' creative minds with different mandates.

That's very interesting. When I heard that Sony was in the market I was concerned because I was wondering how it would affect the vision of the film. Gresham seemed to be pleased with the situation and I wondered if this could potentially change that. If TriStar is a studio more focused on literary films with more creative freedom though, that's definitely a good thing and, unless the new CEO drastically changes the way the studios are run, that trend should continue past the transition.
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Re: Sony's financial troubles

Postby aragorn2 » Feb 15, 2017 9:38 pm

Isn't Sony handling distribution?

If that were the case, I don't think it would negatively effect the film's production.
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Re: Sony's financial troubles

Postby Impending Doom » Feb 16, 2017 8:57 pm

aragorn2 wrote:Isn't Sony handling distribution?

If that were the case, I don't think it would negatively effect the film's production.


TriStar is financing the project and they are owned by Sony. So you can see why there would be some concern.
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Re: Sony's financial troubles

Postby PrinceRilian90 » Apr 26, 2017 9:12 pm

Glumpuddle wrote:Sony Pictures lost almost a billion dollars last quarter are are looking for a new CEO. Wondering how the situation might affect The Silver Chair.

The four movies released by the pictures division during the quarter – “Inferno,” “Arrival,” “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” and “Passengers” – grossed only $363 million worldwide. That is barely a third of the $1.04 billion generated during the same period the year before, fueled by James Bond title “Spectre.”

http://variety.com/2017/biz/asia/losses ... 201976056/

Worth keeping an eye on.


Arrival was release by paramount though not Sony, but either way they have had a rough few months, Passengers, well did about as well as it could considering it's botched marketing campaign and not so great reception, but pretty much everything they released so far this year has done very poorly.

Smurfs, Underworld, Life and Resident Evil have all done under $40m. however every studio goes through it's rough patches, and they do have Spider-Man releasing this summer, hopefully Narnia will be a good investment for them, I do have to say they are probably my least favorite studio of the big six and seem to make alot more bad films then the other studios.
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Re: Sony's financial troubles

Postby narnia fan 7 » May 16, 2017 5:21 pm

I just saw that Sony Pictures has a new CEO Tony Vinciquerra.

So now that they have a new boss I wonder how this will affect The Silver Chair? Or will it affect it?
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