Adapting Lord of the Rings

I liked the Rivendell video.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Where did I do this?

You've been through this with both Amarie and myself just in the last month.  If you don't think there's an issue here, fine, that's your perspective and your right.  But please don't play dumb about why people complain so regularly.

Okay, time to bring out the big guns.

After which they likely walked out in disgust, never to return. Halfy

If that were true how do you explain the dvd and blueray sales? Latest figures I can find are from this site and for 2010-

http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Lord-of-the-Rings-The-%281978%29#tab=video-sales

For it still to be making 441,817 dollars per week in dvd sales after 448 weeks on sale seems pretty good to me. Thats 26,793 units sold in the the week it covers.

Im not playing dumb Eldo- you made two serious accusations of me which I have asked you to provide the written evidence for. I don't believe I have personally attacked anyone or shifted arguments, I have stated my side, the same side I always have on the subject of Bakshi. I am not the one swearing at people.

Okay, I admit I'm at a loss to explain the DVD sales rate. There seems to be some dark power at work.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Im not playing dumb Eldo- you made two serious accusations of me which I have asked you to provide the written evidence for. I don't believe I have personally attacked anyone or shifted arguments, I have stated my side, the same side I always have on the subject of Bakshi. I am not the one swearing at people.

Asking leading questions like "why are you so aggressive" and arguing against a person's demeanor is a logical fallacy and common rhetorical tool to obscure debate.  I know you're better than this and that you do have actual arguments but that doesn't make it any less acceptable.

As for moving the goalposts, I gave my example of it in this thread on the immediately preceding page.  You said Bakshi's film was a "huge success", I was like it's successful but not that much so, and you criticize me for that subtly changing your wording to just "success".  Granted, in this case, you switched back to "huge success" again, so it might not have been a deliberate attempt at obfuscation and if so I apologize.  But it reminded me of our recent discussion in the BBS where something similar happened.

Pettytyrant101 wrote: After which they likely walked out in disgust, never to return. Halfy

If that were true how do you explain the dvd and blueray sales? Latest figures I can find are from this site and for 2010-

http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Lord-of-the-Rings-The-%281978%29#tab=video-sales

For it still to be making 441,817 dollars per week in dvd sales after 448 weeks on sale seems pretty good to me. Thats 26,793 units sold in the the week it covers.

That's the week it was re-released on DVD and Blu-ray.  Of course it's going to be higher than normal.

halfwise wrote:Okay, I admit I'm at a loss to explain the DVD sales rate.  There seems to be some dark power at work.

There really isn't. Look at the release date for the Blu-ray on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-Animated-Movie-Blu-ray/dp/B001PQZYR2

Asking leading questions like "why are you so aggressive" - Eldo

That was not a leadin question it was genuine- I was genuinely taken aback by the hostility of your language and tone in the reply and could not see where on earth it was coming from or why.

I still dont know what you refer to in shifting goalposts- I dont really see a huge difference between a huge success and a success in this context- Torn call it a huge success, I think wiki called a success. Is it hugely important- the relevant factor is it did well at the box office and made a shit load more than it cost to make.

As to it being the week of release- that is irrelevant to the point Halfy was making which was that after seeing it no one would want to again- that it sold well enough on release on dvd and blueray seems to indicate otherwise.

If you look here:

http://www.the-numbers.com/home-market/dvd-sales-chart/2010/04/11

you see that the only other video with comparable low numbers are Dora the Explorer.  Suggestive but not proof that people are buying cartoons for their kids.

Calling Bakshi's film a huge success in response to someone who was comparing it negatively to the impact of PJ's film implies -- to me anyway -- that you think the Bakshi film had a similar impact. Considering that PJ's films are often described as "huge successes" and that's the comparison Halfy was making. But it's not at all comparable to the sort of success that PJ's movies had, and the fact that it turned a profit has nothing to do with it.

It was successful in its day was my point, I made no such claim it was as successful as PJ's version- that would be ludicrous, why would I do so? the facts are patently not there to support such a claim and I have not made that claim.
I am claiming it did well on release at the box office, returned a very healthy profit on its costs, inspired further adaptations and at least some folk to pick up the book and that in many ways and in places it is superior to Pj's at capturing Tolkiens words and characters. And I stand by all those claims for all the reasons I have been arguing for the last few pages or so.

bungobaggins wrote:Okay, time to bring out the big guns.

Galadriel

'I am claiming it did well on release at the box office, returned a very healthy profit on its costs, inspired further adaptations and at least some folk to pick up the book and that in many ways and in places it is superior to Pj's at capturing Tolkiens words and characters. And I stand by all those claims for all the reasons I have been arguing for the last few pages or so.'

it did mediocre on all fronts. mediocre sales, mediocre adaptation, mediocre visuals, mediocre score, its influence is mediocre. its really a specialist film which only purists actually appreciate. nobody in their right mind would say its superior to PJs version.

It made many (or at least several) times its budget. That's not mediocre by any definition. That's the kind of success studios dream of.

It made it's success mainly from tolkien readers who wanted to see the only screen version out there. If not based on an established fan base, it would have tanked. There was a reason the studio didn't fund the second half: they clearly did not see it as a success.

Pj FotR only mad eits money off the established fanbase- New Line were not certain it would succeed at all and they only significantly increased funding and allowed Pj to go back and shoot a lot more for the other two films after it was clear the first was successful- see the recently posted interview somewhere here with Viggo for those details on the production.

Bakshi on the otherhand had a studio change hands mid production on him, and the new people had no interest in the project and only let Bakshi finish the first film at all on the basis that money had already been allocated to it- but they refused to give him any more money, they put a pittance into marketing it and against Bakshi's wishes to call it Part 1 they insisted on calling it LotR's even though it was only half the story.
That it did as well as it did n release under those circumstances is quite a feat in itself- Pj had much more favourable wnds blowing for him as far as the money men were concerned.

halfwise wrote:It made it's success mainly from tolkien readers who wanted to see the only screen version out there.  If not based on an established fan base, it would have tanked.  There was a reason the studio didn't fund the second half: they clearly did not see it as a success.

There's no way to demonstrate that with hard data. It seems like conjecture. This is the same studio that told Bakshi "no one would pay to see half of a film." Shows what they knew.

According to IMDb.com, the estimated budget was $4m; $8m according to Google search. Either way, it made nearly 4 or 8 times its budget. That's only based on a domestic total. For whatever reason there doesn't seem to be any international data.

Radaghast wrote:It made many (or at least several) times its budget. That's not mediocre by any definition. That's the kind of success studios dream of.

It was also made in the era before ludicrous budget inflation kicked in.

At the end of the day, if the film had been a major success, there would have been a direct sequel.  And I reiterate my earlier point (which everyone ignored) that the Rankin/Bass Return of the King was already in the works before Bakshi's film came out and was not "inspired" by it.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Pj FotR only mad eits money off the established fanbase- New Line were not certain it would succeed at all and they only significantly increased funding and allowed Pj to go back and shoot a lot more for the other two films after it was clear the first was successful- see the recently posted interview somewhere here with Viggo for those details on the production.

Part of what made it successful was attracting new fans to the property as well.  Obviously it wouldn't have been made without the fans of the book, but its success came from both book readers and Middle-earth newbies.

The BBC version (in my view the best dramatisation of LotR's to date) was directly commissioned as a result of it and they also cast several of the same actors in the same roles (Galadriel, Gollum, Boromir among them).

The first film was a success by any standard financially- it made a lot more money than it cost to make- the very definition of a successful sale.

The reasons for why there was not a second have a lot to do with the studios attitude, some of the critical response to the first one (in no small part due to the studios failure to properly fund the project) and issues around Saul Zaentz who was producing and had the rights at the time and with whom Bakshi had some issues.
It was not a decision based on if the first was successful commercially or not- it clearly was.

Eldorion wrote:

Radaghast wrote:It made many (or at least several) times its budget. That's not mediocre by any definition. That's the kind of success studios dream of.

It was also made in the era before ludicrous budget inflation kicked in.

Isn't that a point in Bakshi's film's favor? How many times its budget would a film have had to make in the 70's to be considered a success?

At the end of the day, if the film had been a major success, there would have been a direct sequel.  And I reiterate my earlier point (which everyone ignored) that the Rankin/Bass Return of the King was already in the works before Bakshi's film came out and was not "inspired" by it.

I didn't ignore that point, I just didn't refer to it as it didn't pertain to my arguments. I do find it interesting, though. Did they plan the story as "Return of the King" or did Bakshi's movie make them change the story midway? I guess it would make sense that they would try to tell a super-condensed version of tLotR since they were making it for television.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Bakshi on the otherhand had a studio change hands mid production on him, and the new people had no interest in the project and only let Bakshi finish the first film at all on the basis that money had already been allocated to it- but they refused to give him any more money, they put a pittance into marketing it and against Bakshi's wishes to call it Part 1 they insisted on calling it LotR's even though it was only half the story.

You keep saying this, but the only reference to switching studios that I can find in either Wikipedia or the recent TORn interview with Bakshi is to Bakshi himself convincing United Artists and Saul Zaentz to get on board and buy the rights before production began.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:The reasons for why there was not a second have a lot to do with the studios attitude, some of the critical response to the first one (in no small part due to the studios failure to properly fund the project) and issues around Saul Zaentz who was producing and had the rights at the time and with whom Bakshi had some issues.

Critical response has nothing to do with whether a film gets a sequel unless the first film was only mildly profitable and the studio thinks negative reviews and/or word of mouth would discourage people from coming back for more, thus tipping the sequel into unprofitability. Though it should also be noted that in the '70s and '80s it was typical for even positively-received sequels to make less than the original, whereas nowadays it's fairly common for sequels to well-received movies to gross significantly more after building an audience on home video. So there is that in favor of the argument that the lack of a sequel wasn't the movies' fault.

I haven't been able to find anything about Bakshi and Zaentz feuding at the time so if you could shoot me a link I'd appreciate it.