The full trailer has been released for Family Guy’s latest Star Wars inspired film entitled, Something, Something, Something, Dark Side. It features every member of the Griffin clan reprising their roles as characters from the George Lucas franchise, and this time their doing a take on Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
Check out the trailer below…
Have you ever heard of a Star Wars film entitled, Revelations? Off the top of your head the name probably doesn’t sound familiar, but that’s because its one of the many Star Wars fan films that are produced every year. The only difference between this one and the countless others is its significantly larger budget and longer run time. According to The Old Republic, Revelations was released on April 17 ,2005 prior to Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and tries to explain why the Jedi Order was extinct in the original trilogy.
Here’s some fun stories we found hanging around this Inglourious Basterds weekend.
We hear a lot about how much money such-and-such movie made in theaters. With blockbusters such as The Dark Knight, Iron Man, the Star Wars franchise, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it’s hard to imagine that all parties involved didn’t make a fortune. Sadly, for those who are unaware of studio practices, they are often swindled. Not by a little bit, but out of millions of dollars.
David Prowse, the actor who played Darth Vader in the Star Wars Trilogy, has received little money in the form of royalties from Return of the Jedi. The reason? Apparently, the movie has not made a profit. It would definitely seem like the movie made a lot of money right? Nope, in fact it is at a loss! That’s pretty surprising for a movie that grossed $475 million worldwide. The movie made a gross profit, but a net loss. The net income is calculated by subtracting various expenses from the revenue of the movie. Simple enough. The only problem is that the studios add on so many bogus expenses, that movies appear to have lost money when really they have made money.
This is just one of the many cases highlighting what is known as “Hollywood accounting”.
Note to self: don’t ever agree to percentage of the net profits for a movie, you want GROSS profits. You will rarely ever make any money off net profits.
Here are a few movies that, surprisingly, have actually lost money by using this accounting system…
I have to say thanks to Cinematical for bringing my attention to this video. It’s amazing.
In May of 2007, a good friend of mine got to attend the 30th anniversary celebration of Star Wars at the L.A. Convention Center. Fans were treated to some early footage of a little film that represented the true brotherhood of the Star Wars community. That film was Fanboys, and for almost two years now it has been avoiding theaters like the plague. If your like me, you’ve been following the roller coaster of drama that has surrounded the film and it’s distributors, The Weinstein Co. Fanboys release date has been pushed back several times within the past year and the cause seems to change each time. Rumors of storyline issues, re-shoots, and production problems make me wonder if business took the pleasure out of the Fanboy experience?
“Hellboy II: The Curse of the Golden Army”
Starring: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, David Hyde Pierce, and Jeffrey Tambor
This was an odd sequel. Not odd in its plot, or story, or characters (though they are quite odd), odd in that it was made at all. Its predecessor didn’t even clear $100 million at the worldwide box office, making this about as necessary a sequel as the now “Transporter” trilogy. This film didn’t perform too well either only making $140 million around the world. So there probably won’t be a “Hellboy III”.
Business management guru Tom Peters coined the line “under promise and over deliver.” Now while that may work in business so you end up looking like a hero when your profits are higher than Wall Street thought, that mantra doesn’t work if you want to fill theater seats with warm bodies on opening weekend. Instead, film trailer editors are masters at cutting their 2 minutes or so to include only the best jokes or action set pieces to make you wish you could see their movie RIGHT NOW! Yeah, we’re all jaded into knowing that trailers over promise their goods, but here are five that abused that practice.
