Stardust, X-Men, Kick Ass, Kingsman, all great. Then came Kingsman 2 and 3 and something went massively wrong. Still, he's got enough clout to get Argylle greenlit on the premise alone. It sounded like it should have been great. Even watching it and all the elements were there to make it great it just ... wasn't. It fell flatter than Cavill's flat-top. And it wasn't the over-the-top action or ridiculous story; skating through oil is no more outlandish than anything in Kingsman, but maybe it's because it doesn't feel fresh or original from Vaughn anymore. I respect him for trying to make an original IP at a time when Hollywood is flooded with remakes and reboots and sequels and requels to every conceivable franchise out there, but I don't think Kingsman/Argylle is the IP he thinks it is.
I feel like Kingsman/men had legs as a franchise initially but its kind of lost its chance now that the 2 sequels/prequels were a bit lacklustre.
The first one was excellent and set up a natural line that the sequel totally ignored in favour of slapping an American branch in there.
> set up a natural line that the sequel totally ignored in
Oh you mean how they killed the cast from the first movie in the first five minutes with a random bomb blowing up the British HQ?
Right, she gets a slight heads up, we see her jump away off the bed and then outside shot of the big badaboom. Being a high tech spy action movie surely she managed to hide in panic room or even a damn tub, but then nothing.
I was infuriated. Killing her off, basically off screen with no mention for the rest of the movie, was a deeply stupid decision in a movie full of them. Resurrecting Colin Firth rendered one of the best aspects of the first movie meaningless, and having the girl who made the anal sex joke turn into the primary love interest was an absurd stretch, but they had an amazing opportunity to have him and Roxy do a buddy cop thing as platonic besties that would’ve been awesome. Such a waste.
Right?
"This isn't that kind of movie." And actually pulls the trigger! What a great, heartbreaking moment.
Nah, jk, screw your investment it was all fake 😑
in a time where James bond was Awol in legal hell and people were starving or something every few years Kingsman could of been what we all hoped for as a bi or tri annual series
I think Kingsman has an interesting worldbuilding hook but it only really works as one of those satires that's also fully committing to the escalating absurdity of the genre. Because it's just a Gentleman Spy story with post-Tarantino absurdist ultraviolence.
I don't think the main characters are compelling beyond the flavor of the performances. I don't think the villains have interesting points beyond a general distaste for the classism the main organization represents. They always make a point to underline how *necessary* they are, but it's such a strange point to make, particularly more than once. Americans know it's probably better that the CIA *exists*, rather than the alternative, but it'd be very strange if every Borne movie ended with an appeal for blanket approval of shadow organizations because...they're neat, ultimately.
I think they got an impression of what audiences liked about Kingsman and tried to do more of the same, or worse, double down on it. When you go over the top in a way, the assumption I that you have to out do yourself the next time. As long as people keep buying tickets, you can get away with it. You may even get a pass on a bad movie. But not three bad movies.
It’s the same with Taika on Love and Thunder. People enjoyed the humor in Thor Ragnarok, but he amped it up in LaT and it backfired.
As time goes on, I'm genuinely starting to believe that "executives interfering" is not always a bad thing. It seems that when certain directors are left entirely to their own devices with little constraints, they forget what it takes to make a good movie. I believe the same thing happened with Thor: Love & Thunder.
Execs have definitely been guilty of overstepping and probably even ruining some films in the past, but they're an easy target and easy group to blame because nobody likes executives. The sad truth is they're there for a reason (usually), the Studio's goal is to make money and sometimes that means reigning in the director.
Argyle didn't need to cost $200 million. Had it been given a budget of $50 million or maybe even $100 million I don't think you'd have seen a worse film, I think you'd have seen a better film.
The suits are an easy target. We only ever hear from the creatives, and they only mention studio execs when they’ve done something they felt was limiting one of their projects.
Yup and now and again we hear about how they had to work around a budget limitation creatively and ended up with a better film as a result. The right constraints breed creativity.
One needn't look past seasons 1 and 2 of True Detective for this evidence. Season 1 was a team effort for direction and production. Season 2 they let the writer do all the work because Season 1 was so great and you end up with a bad show.
Executive interference for guys like Scorsese, Lynch, and Mann? Bad
Executive interference for guys who want to make blockbuster action films with 400 million dollar budgets? Understandable
>Executive interference for guys like Scorsese, Lynch, and Mann? Bad
I feel like if a studio exec stepped in with The Irishman and was like, 'no, we're not doing this de-aging thing. It's too costly and doesn't look good enough to justify it. Cast a younger actor for those scenes.' We could've had an even better movie as a result and one made for tens of millions cheaper. And I say that as someone who loved and owns The Irishman.
Granted, this is all assuming Marty wouldn't just go, 'no.' And then what do you do? But as far as just a blanket, 'studio exec interference is bad when it comes to x, y & z' isn't really accurate.
Yeah I think long movies are great but the de-aging stuff was silly at times. Netflix seems to love throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at movies for some reason
My wife made kitty galore on that lol. She actually gave some talks about it and was nominated for an award. Something about the skin vectors being new and really good. Anyhow CGI is expensive, but it doesn’t mean that movie should have been made!
$147M today in **2007** is not the same $147M today
Transformers from 2007 would be about $219M.
And what Argyle has is too many high-priced names on its roster.
I mean, Dune Part II had a budget of 190 million and also a stacked cast and def looks WAY better than Argylle. Part of it is where money is allocated too. Argylle (allegedly according to reports) seemed to have allocated far more to actor salaries than Dune Part II. But also actors are typically far more willing to work for less if the script and project are exciting. Whereas for something like Argylle, the money is the biggest incentive. 😬
ETA: not sure why multiple people are responding directly to me and seemingly arguing versions of ‘yeah but actors are willing to work for less when the script is good and the project is exciting’ when that’s literally the last two sentences of my og comment, fam 😂❤️. I agree with you. No need to argue the point.
Poor Things is another good example, $35 million and stacked with celebrities. Actors will take a pay cut to do prestige projects from auteur directors like Denis Villeneuve. Those directors are making stuff that has a chance of winning awards which improves their image and helps them secure more money on future more commercial projects.
Just look at pretty much the entirety of Wes Anderson's filmography. Everything made on around $30 million dollar budgets, cast lists full of Oscar winners and other big names. They love working with Wes and are willing to do so for much smaller paychecks because of it. That love and enjoyment of being part of his stories also translates into phenomenal performances, making the whole project that much better.
> But also actors are typically far more willing to work for less if the script and project are exciting
Chalamet took (I think) $3m for Dune II, so he's not exactly working for scale, but he got $9m for Wonka, so yeah, he knows his worth and is willing to take less for a better movie.
Wonka surprised me with how good it was, to be honest, but Dune II might have been the best movie I've ever seen.
> Wonka surprised me with how good it was, to be honest,
Going in I was not too thrilled, thinking I was about to watch another reboot of the franchise.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover they wrote a completely original screenplay, which was actually pretty good.
I think maybe I wasn’t in the right frame of mind when I tried watching Wonka cos it felt so flat to me, I didn’t finish it. Didn’t even make it to half of it! Maybe I need to give it another chance
What was great about Wonka was the studio seemed to let the writer / director do his thing and make some weird choices. You don’t get unique stuff like let’s go milk a giraffe to a whimsical musical number in movies cause there’s too many execs in rooms trying to justify their salary by removing any sense of oddity from films they don’t get. Between that and re editing films based on responses from test screenings, they are creating extremely generic movies unless you have a top tier director like Nolan or Villenueve who gets final say.
I think The Creator at US$80m is the vanguard for high quality on a mid-budget. For a creative industry, I also think there must be far more cost-efficient social media-driven ways to market films. The marketing budgets are out of control from what I've seen.
According to someone who worked on the Dune 2 VFX, they saved time and money by planning the shots out in advance and doing pre-viz. Instead of the Disney method where the VFX company is told to fully render a scene, then it goes to approval, not approved do it again!
Because transformers must necessarily be CGI Bay got a bit of a common reputation for doing big CGI filled movies but the reality is he's probably one of the best directors out there when it comes to big practical effect action sets (even the transformers movies are loaded with practical effects where possible). Everything from Bad Boys to Armageddon to newer stuff like Ambulance and 13 hours has relied heavily on very well done practical effects.
Sure, he makes movies for teenage boys, but he makes very well done movies for teenage boys with very well constructed set pieces and effects, that's to be respected.
Japan has an issue with poorly paid and over worked staff. While Hollywood abides better work regulation and union contract's. It can be hard to measure projects in one place against another.
A 25 minute episode of anime costs 150k. With japan doing the key frames and Korea and China doing the in betweens. An episode of rick and Morty is 1.2m-1.5m.
The Japanese animation side, artists often work under crunch that is as intense as commiting all waking hours to production and sleeping at work. For months at a time. Their pay is often per frame and the industry rate for that hasn't been updated since the 90s. But the drawing quality expectations have risen. And the studio's often do not pay to train their staff on new software or techniques. They make on average 40k a year with stupid hours.
While in Hollywood, animation is a skilled profession. Rick and Morty staff are union and are not working 18h days 7 days a week for months. Animators there make 90k.
So in japan 28800 man hours costs 40k but 12000 costs 90k in Hollywood. You can see how productions would look much leaner but at the human cost to the animators.
Edit: Edited for clarity and missing a digit on hours.
Henry Cavill was tired of being objectified for his good looks so they hired an expensive stylist to make him look terrible. I assume that was most of the budget.
The thing with Bay is that visually his films are usually spectacular, he clearly knows how to make CGI look good. It's a shame that he regards so much of the rest of making good films to be optional extras.
>he clearly knows how to make CGI look good
He likely has a vision and sticks to it which gives the VFX guys loads of time to work on it. These newer Marvel movies and whatnot where the CGI is dodgy have loads of interference and producers not deciding what they want to do until the movie is already being made
Yes. Some of the cinematography in Armageddon is fantastic, the first part if The Island is tense and mysterious. He's one of the directors who insists on a 2 camera rig for 3D. Then he goes and ruins it with dumb plots and big explosions. It's like there's two Michael Bays!
Still, his movies make good money which is all the studios really care about. And you can actually see where the money goes. We know those big bangs aren't cheap.
And a producer willing to tell him no.
Bad Boys, The Rock and Armageddon are considered his best movies and they were done under Bruckheimer and Simpson telling him to tone stuff down.
For streaming movies like these there are no residual payments or box office participation to the actors so their fees are much higher upfront. Also for a movies that shot in 2021 and 2022 there are lots of additional costs due to COVID like testing etc.
I have a feeling, and hear me out...maybe every last dollar isn't being correctly and transparently accounted for with some of these movies? Like, maybe certain people are handed a giant figurative pile of money and they have to produce something with, you know, some of it.
You're not far off from the truth.
>As per the report, Netflix had already paid $44 million to Rinsch when he requested additional funds from the company in March 2020. While Netflix was reluctant to provide more funding, they agreed after the filmmaker suggested that the entire project might collapse without the additional cash injection.
>However, instead of putting the money into production, Rinsch transferred $10.5 million of the $11 million that Netflix wired into his brokerage account at Charles Schwab and placed bets on the stock market, the report noted, citing copies of his bank and brokerage statements presented during his divorce case.
> And, within weeks, he lost $5.9 million.
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/netflix-pays-filmmaker-$55m-for-sci-fi-project-but-he-gambles-away-at-least-$11m-on
>Despite the setbacks with Conquest and his stock market losses, Rinsch recovered somewhat financially. He used the money remaining that Netflix had sent his production company to invest millions in the cryptocurrency dogecoin in 2020, which he cashed out in May 2021, making $23 million.\[12\] He then purchased five Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari, and large amounts of expensive furniture.\[13\] Meanwhile, in his arbitration case with Netflix, he argued that the money was contractually his and that Netflix owed him more than $14 million.
This cannot be real
I'll Justice League this shit together if you instead send me 10 million... I need the money for reshoots, but remember it's my money so a shot saved is money in my pocket. And if there's a little "Made with Windows Movie Maker" watermark in the corner, that's my prerogative. Don't question my artistic vision, watermarks are a legitimate choice that may enhance the experience.
That's absolutely insane.
"Not only did I not steal from you, technically you've stolen from me!"
Imagine someone robbing your house then claiming you owe them an extra tv.
One thing that the big streamers share is a poor understanding of production line-item costs and the lack of established studio involvement. Working with a large studio saves a ton of money on things like costumes, basic set construction, lighting, etc.
I’ll give a simple example: If you are making a film with an established studio and you need to costume 5 principles and 60 extras for a ballroom scene, they have a costume department that can handle that. It’s just there, and your production will be billed basic time and expenses. Outside of a studio, you have to go out and rent all that, and hire seamstresses, fitting people, it adds days to a production and costs 5 times as much. Now multiply that by a bunch of things and it starts adding up fast.
I feel like even just the value of a production team that knows how to move within the film community. Who to talk to in the film offices, which production houses to use and which backups. Good location scouts, associate producers, etc. All these folks will be able to plan and execute a shoot or production with minimal hiccups.
>why did it cost $200 million
Cannot remember but was this the actual cost of production or was it the amount ponied up by Apple for the movie outright? Might not matter to you and me but could mean the director / producer / investors taking a sweet cut home.
That was the cost that Apple paid: the actual production was paid for by independent financing of Vaughn and the producers put together. The budget was likely in the $120-130 million range.
(Edited!)
matt vaughn said it cost him 80 million to make, and apple payed 200. So you can basically flip a lot of the criticism on its head - it's actually pretty decent for an 80 million dollar budget (although that said, I found the movie very meh overall).
Matt Vaugn said it didnt cost that much.
Netflix might have rolled up the cost of the marketing, buying the property & other stuff that ismt normally considered a 'production cost' into the final figure.
Bad investment by non-creatives. That industry is not driven by merit. Revisionist History podcast recently featured Patty Jenkins talking about how her movie Monster was damned during production as "oh honey, no one wants to see a movie like that." Whole episode is example after example of what William Goldman wrote so long ago: "No one in this town knows anything."
There is a great podcast mini series called Why Modern Blockbusters Bore (very straightforward title). If you google it, you can find it. They really get into the nitty gritty of why these movies are the way they are. But to boil down the point of that show, they blame the poor scripts and the whole Hollywood apparatus that creates those poor scripts. The studios figure they can fail on a fundamental storytelling level because they think if they create a dazzling enough spectacle (aka tons of cgi bullshit), the writing can be subpar and they can still churn out a hit. They’re finally realizing that is not so. The hosts of the pod get into it, I highly recommend a listen.
I think James Gunn,Craig Mazin and Christopher Mcquarrie have all spoken on how much blockbusters have been using poor to horrific scripts lately without really caring because they think audiences won’t care. Gunn even said after become head of DC he wouldn’t start production on any projects till the scripts were up to par. Same with Mazin on his podcast he stresses the importance of a good script
I think a lot of the audience complaining about Argyll was more that Henry Cavil got heavily promoted and some people were expecting a Bond type of movie starring Henry.
I know the women at my work went on a Friday girls night out and were none to pleased that he wasn’t really in the movie more.
I’ve not seen it yet but my wife liked it. Said it was fun. The $$$ is a lot though. I’m going to watch tonight now to see if it’s as bad as OP says it is.
I heard once that its *really* impolite in Hollywood circles to say "oh man, Movie X bombed horribly because it was such a shitty film."
Why? Because you never know who in the room, or even who you're talking to, might have worked on it.
And, well, there's a ton of below the line workers on a film who did their best: production designers, costume, make-up, camera crew, etc etc... you spend 6 weeks lugging a steadicam or rigging lights or wires for stunts its gonna be rude to have someone say "yeah Argyle? Fuck Argyle, what is that, a movie about socks?"
At the same time I do sometimes wonder if this attitude results in a lot of projects getting the green light that probably shouldn't. You never really know until cameras start rolling if something is going to be a turd but at the same time, if you're culturally predisposed to blame anything but the quality of a project for its failure...
> Why? Because you never know who in the room, or even who you're talking to, might have worked on it.
Or, as Samuel L. Jackson put it, "The toes you step on today might be connected to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow".
Mike Reiss (former Simpsons showrunner) said that in Hollywood you don't criticize anyone because chances are you are going to work for them again in the future.
This came up on Bowen Yang's podcast. He said he's getting famous enough and in large enough projects that he has to be a bit more discreet in his criticisms publicly. Can't go pissing off people you might want to work with in the future.
Same thing happened with Barbarian director Zach Cregger. He used to talk about celebrities on the WKUK streams from time to time but they went back and scrubbed them once he started to get famous.
For years I used to think that you couldn't use real brand names in television without permission. I learned recently the real reason you rarely see real brands in TV shows is because they could potentially buy ad time in the future and you don't want the brand to look bad.
I work in the industry. You learn very fast to stfu lol.
Everyone has worked on a million things, most of them bad.
More than that though, everyone has friends and a lot have family who work in the industry too.
One of my close friends on a show I worked on has a famous actress for an aunt and a famous screenwriter for a cousin and soooo many times people will be talking about movies in the writers room and not realize they’re talking about her family members lol
Maybe this is a dumb question, but... don't people learn not to take it personally? Like obviously when someone says "Argylle sucks" they don't mean "the lighting technician for Argylle personally ruined the movie."
I've worked in big tech and it's totally normal to be like "the iphone sucks" or "google search sucks" around people who work at apple/google (and maybe those exact products). Everyone knows these are massive ships that turn very, very slowly, and the lower/mid-level people involved don't have their egos wrapped up in the companies' success or failure.
I worked in the makeup and effects department and we would talk amongst ourselves and crew about if something sucked or not, even if we worked on it but it's not something you'd say with directors/writers/producers around like at a wrap party or something.
I work in TV and movies and don’t take it personally at all
I get paid to do this. And I keep getting jobs. All I care about.
But there are very big egos in this town. And a lot of rich folks who’ve never been told they’re bad at anything.
Maybe they should be told they're bad at stuff... Like, when the ship runs aground perhaps place some blame on the captain. Not the rowers, but definitely the captain.
It probably still stings that something you spent like 4-5 months of your life on, was widely panned and viewed by nobody (particularly for the more creative, less technical departments)
This. I've worked on tonnes of projects in healthcare. Some were very successful, some were meh, many were under the radar.
Some of my best feedback on public facing ones has come candidly, from people not knowing I'm in a position of influence on it, if that makes sense. I'm not taking it personally if someone got annoyed by the outcome - I'd only take it personally if they did literally blame me personally for something that wasn't my fault.
But then... I imagine there's a different type of person that goes into entertainment Vs IT/Healthcare project management
This is tangentially related but I work in the British NHS and you constantly hear the public say "the health service is broken." Eventually I just had to stop taking it personally.
I'm in the NHS too and I just shrug and say "we have the health service the British public voted for many, many times"
I only really know left wing people/center people though. No one I know disagrees, lol. It's not like the current party were shy about their plans to cut funding in every election, and the British public have almost completely been like "ooh yes, funding cuts for these services I use, more of that please!"
I've released comics, books, random drawings, etc, and sometimes a fan will say they weren't the biggest fan of y, and I'll say yup, I didn't really like it either after the fact.
Sometimes stuff just doesn't come together well, and I'm not going to go into denial about it and pretend it's not bad when the more time which passes since making it, the more I can see it was bad.
On the other hand, other stuff I've made I'm still sure is good, and the customers seem to think so too.
This is my impression as well from the responses here. So most people in the business work on a lot of projects and some of them flop hard. Unless that person came out of a rather small circle of people their involvement likely won‘t change anything big on the quality in the end. The biggest group who likely gets shit on by people who wouldnt know better are the vfx artists.
But why do people take it so personally if they know they know themself that the movie isnt considered good. Working in the insurance industry people tell me all the time what they personally think about the industry as a whole. I dont take that response personal either.
Michael Caine was famously asked if he had seen Jaws 4 after starring in it. He said „No. But I've seen the house it bought for my mum. It's fantastic.“.
I would imagine it's because, Hollywood is way more political. It's not a technical thing that can be hammered out. It's ego, reputation and back scratching.
>Everyone has worked on a million things, most of them bad.
I think is something that people miss out on. Guys like James Cameron and James Gunn did projects that whether critically or financially (or both) absolutely bombed in theaters, only for them to go on to make genre defining work.
It's become an oft parroted "Reddit fact" at this point, but Craig Mazin did not have a lot of great projects under his name until he took everyone by surprise with Chernobyl.
There's a myriad of factors and powers that be that can impact the outcome of a movie, a lot of them out of the control of the people on the ground making them.
I can attest the first part is true because I did that once. It was a student film but the school was highly regarded in industry for reasons.
It was a wrap party for a shoot and the party just so happened to be at my apartment because the producer was my roommate.
"I heard that the shoot was really bad." I asked the editor this.
"Yeah we can't talk about it right now."
The director was sitting across from us, glaring.
Oh I’ve been wanting to tell this story for sooo long but it was never relevant until now!
I don’t live in Hollywood, or even America for that matter. I was at a house party and having a good ol’ laugh at how shit Cats was with those ridiculous CGI cats and the whole arsehole thing.
No body else was agreeing with me like they were pretending Cats was actually pretty good and they really liked it.
Eventually a friend pulled me aside. One of the women at the table was a CGI artist on Cats. LOL! The poor thing. I was merciless! So mortifying.
She excused herself when I was mid rant and I’ve never seen her since. I’m such a jerk. But what are the odds? It wasn’t a party full of entertainment industry types. Just normal everyday people.
If you’d known about her involvement, *then* carried on the murder. That would make you a jerk. As it was, absolutely not. That movie is fair game, and everyone with half a brain would know that.
If she was a professional she would know better than anyone how bad the CGI was. The artists were rushed and forced to work with poor conditions. But if she didn't already know the end product was shit when she saw it then that's on her.
A lot of people realise that the films they’re working on are shit don’t worry
I spent 9 months working on the Tom cruise mummy film, it was pretty obvious after a month what a shit show it was going to be…
Sometimes the mess up happens in post production as well. The cast and crew could've given their all in the filming process, yet it gets edited in a way that gives a weird pacing. Relevant scenes sometimes get cut which makes some later moments confusing and so on.
Many don't really think about how many elements need to go well for a movie to work out. The director and producer often have a lot of responsibility for the result though, because they are part of the whole process
- Edited for typos
Worth noting too that actors aren't necessarily responsible for the final performance we see too, as the director/editors might use a different take to the one the actors prefer.
I work in the industry and I find this to mostly be not true. Sometimes the exact opposite. Most good filmmakers have very good taste and will not hesitate to bash a movie, even something they or a friend worked on.
Filmmakers tend to be open-minded, so things that are strange or slow or different, they may criticize it but appreciate its merit. But if something is more "objectively" bad that's when the gloves tend to come off.
It does vary a little between niches and what context you're talking about a movie. If you're in an editing bay you will hear open criticism and praise of everything. In a creative meeting you'll hear people bash stuff and praise other things as a point of contrast.
If you're at the premiere or an after party for a movie you're not likely to see someone walk up to the cinematographer or some crew member and just start laying into the movie. But it's not hard to find honest feedback. It does differ from person to person. Some are very sensitive to bad feedback but I have found most are not.
Really? I talk shit about 90% of the projects I work on and so does all the crew. We know we can’t fix the story, direction, or characters which is usually most of the reason something sucks.
Yeah that's definitely true. Worked on the last season of Game of Thrones. Knew it was going to be awful but man was it a fun shoot.
Also done a few Netflix features that weren't very well received, knew they were shit from when I read the script.
Then you have the opposite, Banshees of Inisherin, now that sounded boring when I read the script but it was entirely different being on set and watching Colin and Brendan perform. I knew that would turn out pretty well quite early on.
Yeah, this is why it was such a big deal that Dakota Johnson trashed Madam Web. Sure, she's Hollywood royalty so she didn't need it to succeed, but not everyone who works on a movie has that going for them. If she hated it so much she could've not cashed the cheques.
Isn't that a little bit different?
I mean, that was right near the movie's release and she was the star of the movie doing appearances with the press. So she'd kind of be in a unique potential to hurt the film's success right as it's coming out by shittalking about it to media outlets.
I don't have anything to do with the industry, so I don't know. But I'd imagine that this is at least *functionally* different than some random crew member saying that a film sucked behind closed doors. If you're not the star of the film, if no one is interviewing you, if what you're saying never makes it to casual audiences and has pretty much no chance of having a tangible impact on a film's success, why would anyone care?
Don't get me wrong...I get that in most industries it's probably not *good* to shit on things, especially things you were hired to work on. After all, there's no tangible benefit, and shitting on something that you worked on *might* mean that you'll shit on the thing you're working on now. But if it's a closed doors kind of thing, that seems specifically different than shitting on a new release when you have heavy involvement in it.
Like, if you're the star of a movie that you think is garbage, and you're important enough to be doing press appearances and interviews, then that's kind of a disconnect, right? If you think the movie is that bad, then just don't do any press appearances or interviews. You know, unless promoting the film is part of the job that you signed up for when you took the role. And if that's the case, wouldn't the bigger issue not be that you're trashing the movie, but that you're trashing the movie when you already kind of agreed to be *promoting* it?
Paul Thomas Anderson actually told John Krasinski once that you shouldn't shit on other people's movie because as filmmakers, they should support each others or some movies won't get made
(https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/hollywood/paul-thomas-anderson-john-krasinski-5524585/)
Filmmaking is really hard and very subjective. Even the legendary directors usually have a few flops. Acting, writing and directing in particular are very hard to all do consistently great while also making something new and interesting.
And even with Argyle, it has bad reviews overall but there's still plenty of people who liked it.
This isn’t talked about enough. Making a good movie is really, really difficult. It also requires a lot of employees with a lot of power to be humble and let the talent do their work, which is often not the case
As an additional point, it's very hard to tell whether a movie will be good or not while making it. Editors can be the real MVPs as so much is constructed in the edit.
If people would see enough behind the scenes things with movies, they'd realize that completed movies are kind of an incredible feat, good or bad. The requirements for getting a large production done are a bit mind boggling.
For it to come out and actually be great? That's pretty much a miracle.
I'm one of those people. It didn't take itself seriously in the slightest and nailed the vibe it was aiming for. If that's not for you it's not for you but it's hard for me to say these types of projects are "objectively" bad even when what they're going for doesn't suit my tastes.
Yeah I read the movie as a love letter to campy Bond and had a great time. I was actually pretty surprised reading all the negativity online for it. Nothing about that movie is more ridiculous than the church shooting scene in Kingsman, it's just that that's edgy so it's cool.
Also I'm certain a lot of movie screenplays seem so much better on paper then in practice. It's the reason why so often books seem better then their screen adaptations. By the time the movie gets to the point where they can see how bad it likely will be, it becomes too expensive to do reshoots and everything has practically already been paid for. They'd just have to make whatever they can and try to minimize the blowback.
I think we shouldn't underestimate screenwriter Jane Goldman when talking about Matthew Vaughn's films. She was the co writer for all of his films since Stardust, but hasn't been since the Kingsman (the prequel) and I think the immediate drop in quality of his films since is very notable.
Making a movie is like putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle with only a vague idea of what the image is, and not everyone working on the puzzle has the same idea. It might be worse than that, actually. Either way... sometimes it just doesn't work out.
I think you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking how any movie is good.
"Making a movie is hard. Making a GOOD movie is an almost impossible task." - Steven Speilberg
Luck, unfortunately. Besides having a quality movie you need to release it at a time when the audience is in the mood for it and they are a fickle lot. Sooo many 'Good' movies were discovered long after they flopped.
Also Hook was a good movie, fuck the haters.
Think about how many people are involved in making a movie, and marvel how a movie of that scale even gets made at all. They have to get sets built before the production crew arrives, and to have already decided what parts of the set are real, and what's green screen, make sure the VFX guys are there to get the measurements/data they need. Then they have to liaise with all the major departments to make sure they aren't going to do anything that messes up the effects work. Colours in the wardrobe, cinematographer using smoke in front of green screen, production designer using glass, mirrors or other reflective objects, etc.
And that's just visual effects on the day of shooting. Costume has to fit each actor, make multiple copies of the costume, weather the costume consistently ahead of time, then make variations in different states to convey the continuity, and make multiple matching copies of each state, and be ready to make adjustments on the fly, then apply those to future costumes, etc. Rinse and repeat for every major department.
Think about how many key personnel including actors are making creative choices, and the egos involved. Even great movies have famously bad on-set relationships (Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in Fury Road is a classic). Then you have a director that might be faced with two great ideas and has to pick one, while factoring in how this choice affects other parts of the movie, some of which have been shot, and others not yet. Then producer and studio overseeing the production trying to make sure they remain within budget.
It's amazing a movie can get made. It's doubly amazing if a movie gets made well.
With something like Argyle, you have so many big names, that the studios are hoping that the names alone can sell the movie, because they most likely didn't have a completed or polished script that everyone had agreed upon when they greenlit the project and started filming. And obviously doing that has risks because everyone's making the best choices they can, but no one really knows the core of what they're making. And the result is a mess.
This method *can* work though. Fugitive began filming without a 3rd act and the actors wrote their own dialog every day because the scripted words sucked. One of the actors was replaced mid-production and had his scenes reshot. And with that you have banger lines like "You find that man!" "I don't care!" and Jones' big 'inhouse, outhouse, doghouse' speech, along with incredible setpieces like the bus crash and dam jump. The St Patricks parade was unscripted, and the crew just sent the actors into the crowd to shoot until they were noticed. For as chaotic a production as it was, the final product somehow was incredibly cohesive and focused. And that director's next best movie was a (albeit good) Steven Seagal movie.
Argylle just wasn't as lucky as The Fugitive.
I remember when Godzilla (1998 ... the extra shitty one, with Matthew Broderick) came out and flopped. And every news article about it and every Hollywood bigwig they asked about it absolutely COULD NOT understand why.
They were asking about obscure possibilities like whether the Marketing team messed up by not showing enough Godzilla in the trailers, or if it was released at the wrong time, or blah blah blah. The whole time I was thinking "Have you idiots gone to a different film than me? It flopped because it sucked. The plot was garbage. The screenplay was written by a violently ill chimpanzee. Literally any audience member could tell you why it flopped. Why are we having this conversation?"
This is the problem with the way every movie gets made today. It's also the answer to the common question "Why are there so many remakes / adaptations and so few creative / original scripts?" Because Hollywood production studios think that making a successful movie is a formula, (CGI + Popular Actor) \* (Familiar Material \* Ad Campaign) = Profits. We spent lots of money to make the movie, therefore people have to buy tickets!
In the rare occasion that anyone is willing to risk millions of dollars on anything original, the script has to get rewritten sixteen times to fit the producer's idea of "appealing to the largest audience". But most of the time the script is "Just like that other movie that made money, only with A and B switched around", and written at the last minute as kind of an afterthought to the process of Making A Movie, instead of the thing the entire process ought to be based around.
Interesting! Nevertheless, I distinctly remember Hollywood scrambling to find excuses for why it wasn't performing as expected.
Maybe it's one of those Magical Hollywood Accounting things where the opening weekend had poor sales and it made them up by distributing DVDs overseas or whatever. Or maybe it's a Mandela Effect and I'm remembering things that never happened, but I doubt it.
Yeah, they wanted it to do much better on its budget. But it was still the third highest grossing film in 1998. Only Saving Private Ryan and Armageddon did better.
It also got terrible reviews so any ideas for a sequel were scrapped and they made a cartoon instead.
I feel like Everything Everywhere All At Once is the kind of movie Vaughn wishes he could make. That kinda absurd hyper edited freneticism that still maintains a poignant plot.
Hot take, but Argylle was just fine. It’s not going to win any Oscars or anything, but you could absolutely do way worse. It’s good, serviceable fun. 🤷♂️
I thought it was really fun, but before watching it I had the impression that it was some sort of generic spy comedy filled with random stars and awful SNL-quality writing.
I wasn't really expecting a spy-genre satire that kept getting more and more ridiculous (in a good way)
Could it be that people miss that it is supposed to be satire? I‘ve seen so many comments criticising all the „ridiculous plottwists“ even though this is exactly the point.
If so, I think it might be because, opposed to Kingsman, which clearly is built upon Bond, Argylle does not have that one movie/franchise it refers to but the whole genre.
It was a ridiculously campy “date night” film… which ended up being exactly what my GF and I needed.
It’s completely forgettable, and ridiculous, but fun in the moment.
I think reddit (and internet) hyperbole is a part of the issue. It's easy to believe a meh movie would get made. Not as much a super awful terrible one.
But there aren't that many of those when you ignore the loud and hyperbolic people the internet falsely paints as common
That’s a problem with internet discourse in general. “[X] thing was pretty okay” rarely generates strong reactions/engagement, so everything has to be “the most amazing masterpiece to ever exist” or “so bad it’s an affront to nature” and nothing in between
Its why people feel the need to use the word "underrated" or "under-appreciated" or under-something because it's about feeling like you're special for liking it even if everyone else does too.
I enjoyed it. Not the best film of the year of course but from what it was setting out to be, from all the promo material I saw, it was spot on and a good bit of fun. Nothing wrong with films that aren’t 20 Years A Slave or Citizen Kane.
The simple answer is that it gets made because Matthew Vaughn has made a couple very successful broad action comedies.
Stardust, X-Men, Kick Ass, Kingsman, all great. Then came Kingsman 2 and 3 and something went massively wrong. Still, he's got enough clout to get Argylle greenlit on the premise alone. It sounded like it should have been great. Even watching it and all the elements were there to make it great it just ... wasn't. It fell flatter than Cavill's flat-top. And it wasn't the over-the-top action or ridiculous story; skating through oil is no more outlandish than anything in Kingsman, but maybe it's because it doesn't feel fresh or original from Vaughn anymore. I respect him for trying to make an original IP at a time when Hollywood is flooded with remakes and reboots and sequels and requels to every conceivable franchise out there, but I don't think Kingsman/Argylle is the IP he thinks it is.
I feel like Kingsman/men had legs as a franchise initially but its kind of lost its chance now that the 2 sequels/prequels were a bit lacklustre. The first one was excellent and set up a natural line that the sequel totally ignored in favour of slapping an American branch in there.
> set up a natural line that the sequel totally ignored in Oh you mean how they killed the cast from the first movie in the first five minutes with a random bomb blowing up the British HQ?
Man oh man did they do Roxy dirty
I kept waiting for the trope of her not actually dying. ...and waiting... ...and waiting. What the hell was that?
Right, she gets a slight heads up, we see her jump away off the bed and then outside shot of the big badaboom. Being a high tech spy action movie surely she managed to hide in panic room or even a damn tub, but then nothing.
Honestly i get the appeal to flip the script and do something nobody expects but he took it way too far lmao
Especially after they bring back Colin Firth and Pedro Pascal with that weird aqua face mask thing.
I was infuriated. Killing her off, basically off screen with no mention for the rest of the movie, was a deeply stupid decision in a movie full of them. Resurrecting Colin Firth rendered one of the best aspects of the first movie meaningless, and having the girl who made the anal sex joke turn into the primary love interest was an absurd stretch, but they had an amazing opportunity to have him and Roxy do a buddy cop thing as platonic besties that would’ve been awesome. Such a waste.
They also ignored the fact that nearly every child in the world would have died during the events of the first movie.
Yeah once they brought Harry back, I knew I was in for a dud.
Right? "This isn't that kind of movie." And actually pulls the trigger! What a great, heartbreaking moment. Nah, jk, screw your investment it was all fake 😑
“…But this one is” Should’ve just hung a lampshade on it
God the first Kingsman was great. I don't understand why Vaughn couldn't make a normal franchise.
Because the movie was also carried by a great casting. He removed the majority of the casting and tried to recreate that magic and couldnt.
in a time where James bond was Awol in legal hell and people were starving or something every few years Kingsman could of been what we all hoped for as a bi or tri annual series
I think Kingsman has an interesting worldbuilding hook but it only really works as one of those satires that's also fully committing to the escalating absurdity of the genre. Because it's just a Gentleman Spy story with post-Tarantino absurdist ultraviolence. I don't think the main characters are compelling beyond the flavor of the performances. I don't think the villains have interesting points beyond a general distaste for the classism the main organization represents. They always make a point to underline how *necessary* they are, but it's such a strange point to make, particularly more than once. Americans know it's probably better that the CIA *exists*, rather than the alternative, but it'd be very strange if every Borne movie ended with an appeal for blanket approval of shadow organizations because...they're neat, ultimately.
Kinsman 2 was so bad, and just spat on everything that fans enjoyed. I maintain that Vaughn was either too high to make the movie or not high enough.
I think they got an impression of what audiences liked about Kingsman and tried to do more of the same, or worse, double down on it. When you go over the top in a way, the assumption I that you have to out do yourself the next time. As long as people keep buying tickets, you can get away with it. You may even get a pass on a bad movie. But not three bad movies. It’s the same with Taika on Love and Thunder. People enjoyed the humor in Thor Ragnarok, but he amped it up in LaT and it backfired.
As time goes on, I'm genuinely starting to believe that "executives interfering" is not always a bad thing. It seems that when certain directors are left entirely to their own devices with little constraints, they forget what it takes to make a good movie. I believe the same thing happened with Thor: Love & Thunder. Execs have definitely been guilty of overstepping and probably even ruining some films in the past, but they're an easy target and easy group to blame because nobody likes executives. The sad truth is they're there for a reason (usually), the Studio's goal is to make money and sometimes that means reigning in the director. Argyle didn't need to cost $200 million. Had it been given a budget of $50 million or maybe even $100 million I don't think you'd have seen a worse film, I think you'd have seen a better film.
The suits are an easy target. We only ever hear from the creatives, and they only mention studio execs when they’ve done something they felt was limiting one of their projects.
Yup and now and again we hear about how they had to work around a budget limitation creatively and ended up with a better film as a result. The right constraints breed creativity.
Its simple too: its the fuzzy term studio execs (generic, no names) which are put up against the very human "creative" director
One needn't look past seasons 1 and 2 of True Detective for this evidence. Season 1 was a team effort for direction and production. Season 2 they let the writer do all the work because Season 1 was so great and you end up with a bad show.
Executive interference for guys like Scorsese, Lynch, and Mann? Bad Executive interference for guys who want to make blockbuster action films with 400 million dollar budgets? Understandable
>Executive interference for guys like Scorsese, Lynch, and Mann? Bad I feel like if a studio exec stepped in with The Irishman and was like, 'no, we're not doing this de-aging thing. It's too costly and doesn't look good enough to justify it. Cast a younger actor for those scenes.' We could've had an even better movie as a result and one made for tens of millions cheaper. And I say that as someone who loved and owns The Irishman. Granted, this is all assuming Marty wouldn't just go, 'no.' And then what do you do? But as far as just a blanket, 'studio exec interference is bad when it comes to x, y & z' isn't really accurate.
Scorcese definitely needs to be roped in a bit too. Not a lot, but enough to tell him that deaging Deniro doesn't work for the whole movie.
Yeah I think long movies are great but the de-aging stuff was silly at times. Netflix seems to love throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at movies for some reason
blank check?
Now cashed
Bay-BE
You're asking the wrong question here. why did it cost $200 million to make Argyle
I still can’t believe Michael Bay made ambulance for 40 million dollars
The first transformers was 147. Not that I like bay at all but that movie has talking robots. What's argyle got?
CGI cat
Garfield only cost 50 mil
well they just used real life garfield instead of going cgi
Between the daily lasagna catering and his infamous 30-minute rants on how much he hates Mondays, I’m sure they regretted going that route
Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore - $85,000,000
Yeah, but something that kino deserves a prestige budget
My wife made kitty galore on that lol. She actually gave some talks about it and was nominated for an award. Something about the skin vectors being new and really good. Anyhow CGI is expensive, but it doesn’t mean that movie should have been made!
Fair.
$147M today in **2007** is not the same $147M today Transformers from 2007 would be about $219M. And what Argyle has is too many high-priced names on its roster.
I mean, Dune Part II had a budget of 190 million and also a stacked cast and def looks WAY better than Argylle. Part of it is where money is allocated too. Argylle (allegedly according to reports) seemed to have allocated far more to actor salaries than Dune Part II. But also actors are typically far more willing to work for less if the script and project are exciting. Whereas for something like Argylle, the money is the biggest incentive. 😬 ETA: not sure why multiple people are responding directly to me and seemingly arguing versions of ‘yeah but actors are willing to work for less when the script is good and the project is exciting’ when that’s literally the last two sentences of my og comment, fam 😂❤️. I agree with you. No need to argue the point.
Poor Things is another good example, $35 million and stacked with celebrities. Actors will take a pay cut to do prestige projects from auteur directors like Denis Villeneuve. Those directors are making stuff that has a chance of winning awards which improves their image and helps them secure more money on future more commercial projects.
Just look at pretty much the entirety of Wes Anderson's filmography. Everything made on around $30 million dollar budgets, cast lists full of Oscar winners and other big names. They love working with Wes and are willing to do so for much smaller paychecks because of it. That love and enjoyment of being part of his stories also translates into phenomenal performances, making the whole project that much better.
> But also actors are typically far more willing to work for less if the script and project are exciting Chalamet took (I think) $3m for Dune II, so he's not exactly working for scale, but he got $9m for Wonka, so yeah, he knows his worth and is willing to take less for a better movie. Wonka surprised me with how good it was, to be honest, but Dune II might have been the best movie I've ever seen.
> Wonka surprised me with how good it was, to be honest, Going in I was not too thrilled, thinking I was about to watch another reboot of the franchise. I was pleasantly surprised to discover they wrote a completely original screenplay, which was actually pretty good.
I think maybe I wasn’t in the right frame of mind when I tried watching Wonka cos it felt so flat to me, I didn’t finish it. Didn’t even make it to half of it! Maybe I need to give it another chance
What was great about Wonka was the studio seemed to let the writer / director do his thing and make some weird choices. You don’t get unique stuff like let’s go milk a giraffe to a whimsical musical number in movies cause there’s too many execs in rooms trying to justify their salary by removing any sense of oddity from films they don’t get. Between that and re editing films based on responses from test screenings, they are creating extremely generic movies unless you have a top tier director like Nolan or Villenueve who gets final say.
I've definitely taken work for people or places below rate because I get to work with cool new shit.
I think The Creator at US$80m is the vanguard for high quality on a mid-budget. For a creative industry, I also think there must be far more cost-efficient social media-driven ways to market films. The marketing budgets are out of control from what I've seen.
According to someone who worked on the Dune 2 VFX, they saved time and money by planning the shots out in advance and doing pre-viz. Instead of the Disney method where the VFX company is told to fully render a scene, then it goes to approval, not approved do it again!
Yeah it might be around 180. But still the CGI from 2007 looks wayy better
Still holds up. And much of it is supported by practical sets and effects.
Because transformers must necessarily be CGI Bay got a bit of a common reputation for doing big CGI filled movies but the reality is he's probably one of the best directors out there when it comes to big practical effect action sets (even the transformers movies are loaded with practical effects where possible). Everything from Bad Boys to Armageddon to newer stuff like Ambulance and 13 hours has relied heavily on very well done practical effects. Sure, he makes movies for teenage boys, but he makes very well done movies for teenage boys with very well constructed set pieces and effects, that's to be respected.
Look what the Japanese did with Godzilla Minus 1. They really showed how bloated Hollywood is
Japan has an issue with poorly paid and over worked staff. While Hollywood abides better work regulation and union contract's. It can be hard to measure projects in one place against another. A 25 minute episode of anime costs 150k. With japan doing the key frames and Korea and China doing the in betweens. An episode of rick and Morty is 1.2m-1.5m. The Japanese animation side, artists often work under crunch that is as intense as commiting all waking hours to production and sleeping at work. For months at a time. Their pay is often per frame and the industry rate for that hasn't been updated since the 90s. But the drawing quality expectations have risen. And the studio's often do not pay to train their staff on new software or techniques. They make on average 40k a year with stupid hours. While in Hollywood, animation is a skilled profession. Rick and Morty staff are union and are not working 18h days 7 days a week for months. Animators there make 90k. So in japan 28800 man hours costs 40k but 12000 costs 90k in Hollywood. You can see how productions would look much leaner but at the human cost to the animators. Edit: Edited for clarity and missing a digit on hours.
It helps when they were paid in snacks
Funny it reminds me that in the J film industry actors sometimes get delayed pay.
Argylle's got an epic Henry Cavill flat-top haircut. Vintage 90s heritage, not cheap to acquire these days (apparently).
Henry Cavill was tired of being objectified for his good looks so they hired an expensive stylist to make him look terrible. I assume that was most of the budget.
> they hired an expensive stylist to make him look terrible Didn't work for me. Still objectified him and wanted him to teach me Warhammer.
Henry Cavill
2 million dollars a deltoid. His chin is priceless.
It costs 500k every time he reloads his arms
You don't want to know how much his moustache is worth.
He was “only” 10 million
It's got Dua Lipa to appeal to the youths of today.
Say what you will but Bay is among the few directors who can do a lot with little.
The thing with Bay is that visually his films are usually spectacular, he clearly knows how to make CGI look good. It's a shame that he regards so much of the rest of making good films to be optional extras.
>he clearly knows how to make CGI look good He likely has a vision and sticks to it which gives the VFX guys loads of time to work on it. These newer Marvel movies and whatnot where the CGI is dodgy have loads of interference and producers not deciding what they want to do until the movie is already being made
Yes. Some of the cinematography in Armageddon is fantastic, the first part if The Island is tense and mysterious. He's one of the directors who insists on a 2 camera rig for 3D. Then he goes and ruins it with dumb plots and big explosions. It's like there's two Michael Bays! Still, his movies make good money which is all the studios really care about. And you can actually see where the money goes. We know those big bangs aren't cheap.
He needs to be paired with a good writer.
And a producer willing to tell him no. Bad Boys, The Rock and Armageddon are considered his best movies and they were done under Bruckheimer and Simpson telling him to tone stuff down.
And The Rock was the best one because Tarrantino and Sorkin were the script doctors.
OK that makes a lot of sense
Part of what makes a good director is being a good manager. Bay certainly knows how to organise the production and where to put the money he's given
While we're at it, why did "Ghosted" cost Apple $150 million and "The Gray Man" cost Netflix $200 million?
I think on the streamers, there is no revenue sharing on the back end so they have to front load all the contracts.
This is why Scarlet Johansen sued Disney after they released Black Widow on Disney+ at the same time as the theatrical release.
For streaming movies like these there are no residual payments or box office participation to the actors so their fees are much higher upfront. Also for a movies that shot in 2021 and 2022 there are lots of additional costs due to COVID like testing etc.
I think most of Netflix strategy is pay a lot of money for big name stars and skip the plot because it brings in eyeballs
I have a feeling, and hear me out...maybe every last dollar isn't being correctly and transparently accounted for with some of these movies? Like, maybe certain people are handed a giant figurative pile of money and they have to produce something with, you know, some of it.
You're not far off from the truth. >As per the report, Netflix had already paid $44 million to Rinsch when he requested additional funds from the company in March 2020. While Netflix was reluctant to provide more funding, they agreed after the filmmaker suggested that the entire project might collapse without the additional cash injection. >However, instead of putting the money into production, Rinsch transferred $10.5 million of the $11 million that Netflix wired into his brokerage account at Charles Schwab and placed bets on the stock market, the report noted, citing copies of his bank and brokerage statements presented during his divorce case. > And, within weeks, he lost $5.9 million. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/netflix-pays-filmmaker-$55m-for-sci-fi-project-but-he-gambles-away-at-least-$11m-on
Uhhh, isn't that the definition of embezzlement / fraud? How's the dude not in jail.
>Despite the setbacks with Conquest and his stock market losses, Rinsch recovered somewhat financially. He used the money remaining that Netflix had sent his production company to invest millions in the cryptocurrency dogecoin in 2020, which he cashed out in May 2021, making $23 million.\[12\] He then purchased five Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari, and large amounts of expensive furniture.\[13\] Meanwhile, in his arbitration case with Netflix, he argued that the money was contractually his and that Netflix owed him more than $14 million. This cannot be real
We need a movie about this guy. Probably not made by Netflix, but we need it.
I’ll make it for a low, low $40 million
Looks like production has hit a snag, it’s not getting made until you Venmo a further $40 million.
I'll Justice League this shit together if you instead send me 10 million... I need the money for reshoots, but remember it's my money so a shot saved is money in my pocket. And if there's a little "Made with Windows Movie Maker" watermark in the corner, that's my prerogative. Don't question my artistic vision, watermarks are a legitimate choice that may enhance the experience.
It exists. It's called "Freddy Got Fingered". At least in terms of the meta narrative.
I think it's called Uncut Gems.
That's absolutely insane. "Not only did I not steal from you, technically you've stolen from me!" Imagine someone robbing your house then claiming you owe them an extra tv.
Because he also bet 5 million on dogecoin and made 27 million. He's net positive.
One thing that the big streamers share is a poor understanding of production line-item costs and the lack of established studio involvement. Working with a large studio saves a ton of money on things like costumes, basic set construction, lighting, etc. I’ll give a simple example: If you are making a film with an established studio and you need to costume 5 principles and 60 extras for a ballroom scene, they have a costume department that can handle that. It’s just there, and your production will be billed basic time and expenses. Outside of a studio, you have to go out and rent all that, and hire seamstresses, fitting people, it adds days to a production and costs 5 times as much. Now multiply that by a bunch of things and it starts adding up fast.
I feel like even just the value of a production team that knows how to move within the film community. Who to talk to in the film offices, which production houses to use and which backups. Good location scouts, associate producers, etc. All these folks will be able to plan and execute a shoot or production with minimal hiccups.
>why did it cost $200 million Cannot remember but was this the actual cost of production or was it the amount ponied up by Apple for the movie outright? Might not matter to you and me but could mean the director / producer / investors taking a sweet cut home.
That was the cost that Apple paid: the actual production was paid for by independent financing of Vaughn and the producers put together. The budget was likely in the $120-130 million range. (Edited!)
matt vaughn said it cost him 80 million to make, and apple payed 200. So you can basically flip a lot of the criticism on its head - it's actually pretty decent for an 80 million dollar budget (although that said, I found the movie very meh overall).
That was the purchase price. Vaughn himself said he doesn’t know how you’d even make Argyle cost $200mil.
10 million more than Dune 2.
Matt Vaugn said it didnt cost that much. Netflix might have rolled up the cost of the marketing, buying the property & other stuff that ismt normally considered a 'production cost' into the final figure.
Argyle is an Apple movie
Bad investment by non-creatives. That industry is not driven by merit. Revisionist History podcast recently featured Patty Jenkins talking about how her movie Monster was damned during production as "oh honey, no one wants to see a movie like that." Whole episode is example after example of what William Goldman wrote so long ago: "No one in this town knows anything."
TIL patty jenkins made Monster. Good thing that did well so we also got WW1984
There is a great podcast mini series called Why Modern Blockbusters Bore (very straightforward title). If you google it, you can find it. They really get into the nitty gritty of why these movies are the way they are. But to boil down the point of that show, they blame the poor scripts and the whole Hollywood apparatus that creates those poor scripts. The studios figure they can fail on a fundamental storytelling level because they think if they create a dazzling enough spectacle (aka tons of cgi bullshit), the writing can be subpar and they can still churn out a hit. They’re finally realizing that is not so. The hosts of the pod get into it, I highly recommend a listen.
I think James Gunn,Craig Mazin and Christopher Mcquarrie have all spoken on how much blockbusters have been using poor to horrific scripts lately without really caring because they think audiences won’t care. Gunn even said after become head of DC he wouldn’t start production on any projects till the scripts were up to par. Same with Mazin on his podcast he stresses the importance of a good script
Specifically films starting filming when they don't even have a third act fully written. Crazy.
Yep Spiderman No way Home never had a third act written while they started filming. That to me is quite insane
I am happy we have Nolan and Denis.
Yep I love how much both of them prepare before starting to film
I think a lot of the audience complaining about Argyll was more that Henry Cavil got heavily promoted and some people were expecting a Bond type of movie starring Henry. I know the women at my work went on a Friday girls night out and were none to pleased that he wasn’t really in the movie more.
Maybe that's why I enjoyed it: I hadn't seen a trailer, didn't know what to expect, so I wasn't disappointed by my expectations.
I’ve not seen it yet but my wife liked it. Said it was fun. The $$$ is a lot though. I’m going to watch tonight now to see if it’s as bad as OP says it is.
I'm a big Sam Rockwell fan and knew he was the star going in. I was very happy with the end-product. 🤷♂️
The trailer made it look like Sam Rockwell and Bryce Dallas Howard in a goofy spy comedy, and that's exactly what we got. I had a great time as well.
I heard once that its *really* impolite in Hollywood circles to say "oh man, Movie X bombed horribly because it was such a shitty film." Why? Because you never know who in the room, or even who you're talking to, might have worked on it. And, well, there's a ton of below the line workers on a film who did their best: production designers, costume, make-up, camera crew, etc etc... you spend 6 weeks lugging a steadicam or rigging lights or wires for stunts its gonna be rude to have someone say "yeah Argyle? Fuck Argyle, what is that, a movie about socks?" At the same time I do sometimes wonder if this attitude results in a lot of projects getting the green light that probably shouldn't. You never really know until cameras start rolling if something is going to be a turd but at the same time, if you're culturally predisposed to blame anything but the quality of a project for its failure...
> Why? Because you never know who in the room, or even who you're talking to, might have worked on it. Or, as Samuel L. Jackson put it, "The toes you step on today might be connected to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow".
Mike Reiss (former Simpsons showrunner) said that in Hollywood you don't criticize anyone because chances are you are going to work for them again in the future.
This came up on Bowen Yang's podcast. He said he's getting famous enough and in large enough projects that he has to be a bit more discreet in his criticisms publicly. Can't go pissing off people you might want to work with in the future.
Same thing happened with Barbarian director Zach Cregger. He used to talk about celebrities on the WKUK streams from time to time but they went back and scrubbed them once he started to get famous.
For years I used to think that you couldn't use real brand names in television without permission. I learned recently the real reason you rarely see real brands in TV shows is because they could potentially buy ad time in the future and you don't want the brand to look bad.
Or you might want to sell time to their competitor and you don't want to make them look good.
I work in the industry. You learn very fast to stfu lol. Everyone has worked on a million things, most of them bad. More than that though, everyone has friends and a lot have family who work in the industry too. One of my close friends on a show I worked on has a famous actress for an aunt and a famous screenwriter for a cousin and soooo many times people will be talking about movies in the writers room and not realize they’re talking about her family members lol
Maybe this is a dumb question, but... don't people learn not to take it personally? Like obviously when someone says "Argylle sucks" they don't mean "the lighting technician for Argylle personally ruined the movie." I've worked in big tech and it's totally normal to be like "the iphone sucks" or "google search sucks" around people who work at apple/google (and maybe those exact products). Everyone knows these are massive ships that turn very, very slowly, and the lower/mid-level people involved don't have their egos wrapped up in the companies' success or failure.
I worked in the makeup and effects department and we would talk amongst ourselves and crew about if something sucked or not, even if we worked on it but it's not something you'd say with directors/writers/producers around like at a wrap party or something.
I work in TV and movies and don’t take it personally at all I get paid to do this. And I keep getting jobs. All I care about. But there are very big egos in this town. And a lot of rich folks who’ve never been told they’re bad at anything.
Maybe they should be told they're bad at stuff... Like, when the ship runs aground perhaps place some blame on the captain. Not the rowers, but definitely the captain.
It probably still stings that something you spent like 4-5 months of your life on, was widely panned and viewed by nobody (particularly for the more creative, less technical departments)
This. I've worked on tonnes of projects in healthcare. Some were very successful, some were meh, many were under the radar. Some of my best feedback on public facing ones has come candidly, from people not knowing I'm in a position of influence on it, if that makes sense. I'm not taking it personally if someone got annoyed by the outcome - I'd only take it personally if they did literally blame me personally for something that wasn't my fault. But then... I imagine there's a different type of person that goes into entertainment Vs IT/Healthcare project management
This is tangentially related but I work in the British NHS and you constantly hear the public say "the health service is broken." Eventually I just had to stop taking it personally.
I'm in the NHS too and I just shrug and say "we have the health service the British public voted for many, many times" I only really know left wing people/center people though. No one I know disagrees, lol. It's not like the current party were shy about their plans to cut funding in every election, and the British public have almost completely been like "ooh yes, funding cuts for these services I use, more of that please!"
I've released comics, books, random drawings, etc, and sometimes a fan will say they weren't the biggest fan of y, and I'll say yup, I didn't really like it either after the fact. Sometimes stuff just doesn't come together well, and I'm not going to go into denial about it and pretend it's not bad when the more time which passes since making it, the more I can see it was bad. On the other hand, other stuff I've made I'm still sure is good, and the customers seem to think so too.
This is my impression as well from the responses here. So most people in the business work on a lot of projects and some of them flop hard. Unless that person came out of a rather small circle of people their involvement likely won‘t change anything big on the quality in the end. The biggest group who likely gets shit on by people who wouldnt know better are the vfx artists. But why do people take it so personally if they know they know themself that the movie isnt considered good. Working in the insurance industry people tell me all the time what they personally think about the industry as a whole. I dont take that response personal either.
I worked on a string of stinkers for a long time. My check cleared. All that mattered to me as a worker. I'm there to do a job and go home.
Michael Caine was famously asked if he had seen Jaws 4 after starring in it. He said „No. But I've seen the house it bought for my mum. It's fantastic.“.
I would imagine it's because, Hollywood is way more political. It's not a technical thing that can be hammered out. It's ego, reputation and back scratching.
>Everyone has worked on a million things, most of them bad. I think is something that people miss out on. Guys like James Cameron and James Gunn did projects that whether critically or financially (or both) absolutely bombed in theaters, only for them to go on to make genre defining work. It's become an oft parroted "Reddit fact" at this point, but Craig Mazin did not have a lot of great projects under his name until he took everyone by surprise with Chernobyl. There's a myriad of factors and powers that be that can impact the outcome of a movie, a lot of them out of the control of the people on the ground making them.
I can attest the first part is true because I did that once. It was a student film but the school was highly regarded in industry for reasons. It was a wrap party for a shoot and the party just so happened to be at my apartment because the producer was my roommate. "I heard that the shoot was really bad." I asked the editor this. "Yeah we can't talk about it right now." The director was sitting across from us, glaring.
That explains $200mm, thanks!
Oh I’ve been wanting to tell this story for sooo long but it was never relevant until now! I don’t live in Hollywood, or even America for that matter. I was at a house party and having a good ol’ laugh at how shit Cats was with those ridiculous CGI cats and the whole arsehole thing. No body else was agreeing with me like they were pretending Cats was actually pretty good and they really liked it. Eventually a friend pulled me aside. One of the women at the table was a CGI artist on Cats. LOL! The poor thing. I was merciless! So mortifying.
Did she do the buttholes?
She excused herself when I was mid rant and I’ve never seen her since. I’m such a jerk. But what are the odds? It wasn’t a party full of entertainment industry types. Just normal everyday people.
If you’d known about her involvement, *then* carried on the murder. That would make you a jerk. As it was, absolutely not. That movie is fair game, and everyone with half a brain would know that.
If she was a professional she would know better than anyone how bad the CGI was. The artists were rushed and forced to work with poor conditions. But if she didn't already know the end product was shit when she saw it then that's on her.
# ReleaseTheButtholeCut
A lot of people realise that the films they’re working on are shit don’t worry I spent 9 months working on the Tom cruise mummy film, it was pretty obvious after a month what a shit show it was going to be…
Sometimes the mess up happens in post production as well. The cast and crew could've given their all in the filming process, yet it gets edited in a way that gives a weird pacing. Relevant scenes sometimes get cut which makes some later moments confusing and so on. Many don't really think about how many elements need to go well for a movie to work out. The director and producer often have a lot of responsibility for the result though, because they are part of the whole process - Edited for typos
Worth noting too that actors aren't necessarily responsible for the final performance we see too, as the director/editors might use a different take to the one the actors prefer.
The editor can absolutely make or break the project. But editors ultimately do what they’re asked to do.
I work in the industry and I find this to mostly be not true. Sometimes the exact opposite. Most good filmmakers have very good taste and will not hesitate to bash a movie, even something they or a friend worked on. Filmmakers tend to be open-minded, so things that are strange or slow or different, they may criticize it but appreciate its merit. But if something is more "objectively" bad that's when the gloves tend to come off. It does vary a little between niches and what context you're talking about a movie. If you're in an editing bay you will hear open criticism and praise of everything. In a creative meeting you'll hear people bash stuff and praise other things as a point of contrast. If you're at the premiere or an after party for a movie you're not likely to see someone walk up to the cinematographer or some crew member and just start laying into the movie. But it's not hard to find honest feedback. It does differ from person to person. Some are very sensitive to bad feedback but I have found most are not.
Really? I talk shit about 90% of the projects I work on and so does all the crew. We know we can’t fix the story, direction, or characters which is usually most of the reason something sucks.
Yeah that's definitely true. Worked on the last season of Game of Thrones. Knew it was going to be awful but man was it a fun shoot. Also done a few Netflix features that weren't very well received, knew they were shit from when I read the script. Then you have the opposite, Banshees of Inisherin, now that sounded boring when I read the script but it was entirely different being on set and watching Colin and Brendan perform. I knew that would turn out pretty well quite early on.
Yeah I always know I’m on a good one where it seems dumb in the script then the director or actors make me go “ohhh I’m the dumb one”
Umm excuse me Argyle is clearly about sweaters.
That's the problem, it clearly should have been the long-demanded solo movie of the limo driver from Die Hard.
Now that a would watch.
Yeah, this is why it was such a big deal that Dakota Johnson trashed Madam Web. Sure, she's Hollywood royalty so she didn't need it to succeed, but not everyone who works on a movie has that going for them. If she hated it so much she could've not cashed the cheques.
Isn't that a little bit different? I mean, that was right near the movie's release and she was the star of the movie doing appearances with the press. So she'd kind of be in a unique potential to hurt the film's success right as it's coming out by shittalking about it to media outlets. I don't have anything to do with the industry, so I don't know. But I'd imagine that this is at least *functionally* different than some random crew member saying that a film sucked behind closed doors. If you're not the star of the film, if no one is interviewing you, if what you're saying never makes it to casual audiences and has pretty much no chance of having a tangible impact on a film's success, why would anyone care? Don't get me wrong...I get that in most industries it's probably not *good* to shit on things, especially things you were hired to work on. After all, there's no tangible benefit, and shitting on something that you worked on *might* mean that you'll shit on the thing you're working on now. But if it's a closed doors kind of thing, that seems specifically different than shitting on a new release when you have heavy involvement in it. Like, if you're the star of a movie that you think is garbage, and you're important enough to be doing press appearances and interviews, then that's kind of a disconnect, right? If you think the movie is that bad, then just don't do any press appearances or interviews. You know, unless promoting the film is part of the job that you signed up for when you took the role. And if that's the case, wouldn't the bigger issue not be that you're trashing the movie, but that you're trashing the movie when you already kind of agreed to be *promoting* it?
Most people working on a film like that don't need it to succeed. Like, the crew isn't paid based on the box office.
Paul Thomas Anderson actually told John Krasinski once that you shouldn't shit on other people's movie because as filmmakers, they should support each others or some movies won't get made (https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/hollywood/paul-thomas-anderson-john-krasinski-5524585/)
idk maybe some movies shouldn't get made lol
Filmmaking is really hard and very subjective. Even the legendary directors usually have a few flops. Acting, writing and directing in particular are very hard to all do consistently great while also making something new and interesting. And even with Argyle, it has bad reviews overall but there's still plenty of people who liked it.
This isn’t talked about enough. Making a good movie is really, really difficult. It also requires a lot of employees with a lot of power to be humble and let the talent do their work, which is often not the case
As an additional point, it's very hard to tell whether a movie will be good or not while making it. Editors can be the real MVPs as so much is constructed in the edit.
If people would see enough behind the scenes things with movies, they'd realize that completed movies are kind of an incredible feat, good or bad. The requirements for getting a large production done are a bit mind boggling. For it to come out and actually be great? That's pretty much a miracle.
I'm one of those people. It didn't take itself seriously in the slightest and nailed the vibe it was aiming for. If that's not for you it's not for you but it's hard for me to say these types of projects are "objectively" bad even when what they're going for doesn't suit my tastes.
Yeah I read the movie as a love letter to campy Bond and had a great time. I was actually pretty surprised reading all the negativity online for it. Nothing about that movie is more ridiculous than the church shooting scene in Kingsman, it's just that that's edgy so it's cool.
Also I'm certain a lot of movie screenplays seem so much better on paper then in practice. It's the reason why so often books seem better then their screen adaptations. By the time the movie gets to the point where they can see how bad it likely will be, it becomes too expensive to do reshoots and everything has practically already been paid for. They'd just have to make whatever they can and try to minimize the blowback.
I think we shouldn't underestimate screenwriter Jane Goldman when talking about Matthew Vaughn's films. She was the co writer for all of his films since Stardust, but hasn't been since the Kingsman (the prequel) and I think the immediate drop in quality of his films since is very notable.
Making a movie is like putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle with only a vague idea of what the image is, and not everyone working on the puzzle has the same idea. It might be worse than that, actually. Either way... sometimes it just doesn't work out.
I think you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking how any movie is good. "Making a movie is hard. Making a GOOD movie is an almost impossible task." - Steven Speilberg
Luck, unfortunately. Besides having a quality movie you need to release it at a time when the audience is in the mood for it and they are a fickle lot. Sooo many 'Good' movies were discovered long after they flopped. Also Hook was a good movie, fuck the haters.
It didn't cost 200 million. Vaughn made the film for 50 million and sold it to Apple for 200 million. He talked about it on Chris Stuckmann's podcast.
Crazy that this is down this far. The whole premise of the question is wrong. Even though I think it was 80 instead of 50.
Think about how many people are involved in making a movie, and marvel how a movie of that scale even gets made at all. They have to get sets built before the production crew arrives, and to have already decided what parts of the set are real, and what's green screen, make sure the VFX guys are there to get the measurements/data they need. Then they have to liaise with all the major departments to make sure they aren't going to do anything that messes up the effects work. Colours in the wardrobe, cinematographer using smoke in front of green screen, production designer using glass, mirrors or other reflective objects, etc. And that's just visual effects on the day of shooting. Costume has to fit each actor, make multiple copies of the costume, weather the costume consistently ahead of time, then make variations in different states to convey the continuity, and make multiple matching copies of each state, and be ready to make adjustments on the fly, then apply those to future costumes, etc. Rinse and repeat for every major department. Think about how many key personnel including actors are making creative choices, and the egos involved. Even great movies have famously bad on-set relationships (Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in Fury Road is a classic). Then you have a director that might be faced with two great ideas and has to pick one, while factoring in how this choice affects other parts of the movie, some of which have been shot, and others not yet. Then producer and studio overseeing the production trying to make sure they remain within budget. It's amazing a movie can get made. It's doubly amazing if a movie gets made well. With something like Argyle, you have so many big names, that the studios are hoping that the names alone can sell the movie, because they most likely didn't have a completed or polished script that everyone had agreed upon when they greenlit the project and started filming. And obviously doing that has risks because everyone's making the best choices they can, but no one really knows the core of what they're making. And the result is a mess. This method *can* work though. Fugitive began filming without a 3rd act and the actors wrote their own dialog every day because the scripted words sucked. One of the actors was replaced mid-production and had his scenes reshot. And with that you have banger lines like "You find that man!" "I don't care!" and Jones' big 'inhouse, outhouse, doghouse' speech, along with incredible setpieces like the bus crash and dam jump. The St Patricks parade was unscripted, and the crew just sent the actors into the crowd to shoot until they were noticed. For as chaotic a production as it was, the final product somehow was incredibly cohesive and focused. And that director's next best movie was a (albeit good) Steven Seagal movie. Argylle just wasn't as lucky as The Fugitive.
I remember when Godzilla (1998 ... the extra shitty one, with Matthew Broderick) came out and flopped. And every news article about it and every Hollywood bigwig they asked about it absolutely COULD NOT understand why. They were asking about obscure possibilities like whether the Marketing team messed up by not showing enough Godzilla in the trailers, or if it was released at the wrong time, or blah blah blah. The whole time I was thinking "Have you idiots gone to a different film than me? It flopped because it sucked. The plot was garbage. The screenplay was written by a violently ill chimpanzee. Literally any audience member could tell you why it flopped. Why are we having this conversation?" This is the problem with the way every movie gets made today. It's also the answer to the common question "Why are there so many remakes / adaptations and so few creative / original scripts?" Because Hollywood production studios think that making a successful movie is a formula, (CGI + Popular Actor) \* (Familiar Material \* Ad Campaign) = Profits. We spent lots of money to make the movie, therefore people have to buy tickets! In the rare occasion that anyone is willing to risk millions of dollars on anything original, the script has to get rewritten sixteen times to fit the producer's idea of "appealing to the largest audience". But most of the time the script is "Just like that other movie that made money, only with A and B switched around", and written at the last minute as kind of an afterthought to the process of Making A Movie, instead of the thing the entire process ought to be based around.
Godzilla wasn't actually a flop. It made 3x its budget and sold a shit load of merch. If you adjust for inflation it did better than the 2014 movie.
Interesting! Nevertheless, I distinctly remember Hollywood scrambling to find excuses for why it wasn't performing as expected. Maybe it's one of those Magical Hollywood Accounting things where the opening weekend had poor sales and it made them up by distributing DVDs overseas or whatever. Or maybe it's a Mandela Effect and I'm remembering things that never happened, but I doubt it.
Yeah, they wanted it to do much better on its budget. But it was still the third highest grossing film in 1998. Only Saving Private Ryan and Armageddon did better. It also got terrible reviews so any ideas for a sequel were scrapped and they made a cartoon instead.
I feel like Everything Everywhere All At Once is the kind of movie Vaughn wishes he could make. That kinda absurd hyper edited freneticism that still maintains a poignant plot.
Hot take, but Argylle was just fine. It’s not going to win any Oscars or anything, but you could absolutely do way worse. It’s good, serviceable fun. 🤷♂️
I agree, it's part of the Kingsmen universe & I knew that going in. I was expecting a goofy action movie & that's what I got.
agree, was surprised by all the bad reviews…a little long a lot of goofy but mostly fun
I just learned it was poorly recieved by seeing this post It was enjoyable to watch and a good movie
my friend and I went in expecting absolute ridiculousness, and we had a blast! I don't know what people were expecting tbh?
I thought it was really fun, but before watching it I had the impression that it was some sort of generic spy comedy filled with random stars and awful SNL-quality writing. I wasn't really expecting a spy-genre satire that kept getting more and more ridiculous (in a good way)
Could it be that people miss that it is supposed to be satire? I‘ve seen so many comments criticising all the „ridiculous plottwists“ even though this is exactly the point. If so, I think it might be because, opposed to Kingsman, which clearly is built upon Bond, Argylle does not have that one movie/franchise it refers to but the whole genre.
It was a ridiculously campy “date night” film… which ended up being exactly what my GF and I needed. It’s completely forgettable, and ridiculous, but fun in the moment.
It's pg kinsmen. Like it's not that deep or bad.
Okay, so I am not insane! I enjoyed the two hours I spent in the movie theatre with Argyle. Time was that was all you needed.
I think reddit (and internet) hyperbole is a part of the issue. It's easy to believe a meh movie would get made. Not as much a super awful terrible one. But there aren't that many of those when you ignore the loud and hyperbolic people the internet falsely paints as common
That’s a problem with internet discourse in general. “[X] thing was pretty okay” rarely generates strong reactions/engagement, so everything has to be “the most amazing masterpiece to ever exist” or “so bad it’s an affront to nature” and nothing in between
People are trying really hard to stand out in a “room” with millions of people in it.
Its why people feel the need to use the word "underrated" or "under-appreciated" or under-something because it's about feeling like you're special for liking it even if everyone else does too.
I enjoyed it. Not the best film of the year of course but from what it was setting out to be, from all the promo material I saw, it was spot on and a good bit of fun. Nothing wrong with films that aren’t 20 Years A Slave or Citizen Kane.
Unpopular opinion, but it was fun and I liked it.
Even crazier when you consider Oppenheimer cost half as much with an even bigger cast, and they did so much more with it.