My wife and I were noticing that on both HBO and Encore, while they play a number of good movies each month that they put on sporadically, they have a far larger stable of turds. In fact, for every time ‘Usual Suspects’ or ‘The Sixth Sense’ plays, movies like ‘Obsessed’, ‘Passengers’, ‘Traitor’, and ‘Deuce Bigalow’ play four times. Many of these turds are ones we have never heard of or were direct to video flops, yet they play continuously, which prompted some questions.
How exactly do the cable movie channels decide what they will air in a given month and how does the pricing work? Is the studio creating this situation by saying, “Well, you pay us $50,000 this month, but you can only have these three popular movies if you agree to play these other five turds as fillers at least three times as much”. You would think one of the other cable channels would just play all great movies all the time.
My understanding is that actors are paid residuals whenever their movie airs. So am I right in saying that actors like Rob Schneider are getting large payouts each month because his crappy movies are on all the time as filler, whereas Robert DeNiro only makes a small residual by comparison because the cable channels will only air ‘Goodfellas’ on rare occasions? If so, does it actually end up being better as an actor to star in one of these crappier movies, or a kid movie that will air non-stop during the day?
I can’t really address the rest of your post, but Goodfellas seems to be on basic cable all the time. IMO, that’s a good thing, as it’s one of those movies that stands up well to repeat viewings (even with the TV edits). But to claim it’s on only rarely, says to me you’re not doing enough channel surfing. In fact I’m pretty that’s a requirement to get registered as an official cable channel these days - You must show Goodfellas at least once a year. I’ve even seen it on Lifetime, and I swear I’ve seen it on the History Channel.
I think Sturgeon’s Law applies here, just as it does everywhere else in the entertainment world.
What bugs me is playing the same damned movie, over and over and over. I think I’ve seen Rambo I played close to 50 times just this year (on various networks).
You’re partially correct. Yes, movies are often sold in bundles. You buy the rights to say 50 movies. You play the movies and see which ones bring in the ratings. If say 7 of those 50 movies bring in good ratings you repeat it. If say 3 of those 50 bring in terrible ratings you don’t show it at all anymore.
For recent movies again you’re correct, the cable networks buy them with the understanding they can show them “X” number of times. Some are even restricted. For instance, it might say you can put it on HBO in the evening and Cinemax in the day.
It’s really all about negotiations. There is no set way to do this. Also movie distributors may have deals with cable TV owners. Like the Coyote Studio may give Road Runner Cable Channel first right to choose all their films for the next 2 or three years
Do actors get residuals? Yes IF and this is a BIG IF, they negotiate it as part of their contract. The bigger the star the more likely they are getting residuals. But “Hollywood Accounting” is a strange beast.
The thing you have to remember is no one cable channel is owned by one single entity. When you buy programming you’re almost always negotiating as part of a bigger deal. This accounts for the “bad movies” you see. From the studio point of view it makes sense as the hit movies offset the cost of the duds.
Fair enough, my ‘crap’ may also be your ‘treasured movie’. I would simply suggest that independent of the fact that I am turning on the TV 5 minutes after ‘Goodfellas’ just ended, and am now stuck looking at ‘Obsessed’ (i.e. black version of Fatal Attraction), I want to know why movies like ‘Obsessed’ are on as often as they are. If this played in the theater at all (and I’m not sure it did), I highly doubt it did well and probably found itself relegated to the reject pile at a video store pretty quickly.
If a go to a video store, it generally costs me the same to rent a good movie as it does a turd. I would simply argue that it wouldn’t be hard for a cable channel to play a rotating stock each month of truly great movies based on all the ones that are out there. All one would have to do is look at the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB, start at the top of the list, and work your way down. I doubt anyone is out there who really wants to see ‘Obsessed’ ten times a day versus ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, but perhaps I’m wrong. I just feel like it doesn’t make sense to ever air filler movies if they are generally not liked. Or unless there is a financial/business requirement to do so.
I don’t mean to hijack, but the argument on this topic seems to be turning circular. The question seems to be: Obsessed is an awful film, so why should cable companies air it?
But if that’s the case, why did Sony release it? Why did Sony make it? Why did Sony buy the script? Obviously, they thought it would (and still can) make money. According to IMDb, the film cost $20 million and grossed $68 million in the US. Even if one goes by the rule that a film must make at least three times its cost to make up for marketing and promotion, the film still cleared $8 million.
In fact, if I was a studio executive and a producer came to me and said, “I’d like to take this great 80’s thriller, update it, and make it for a black audience – and it will only cost 20 million dollars,” I would greenlight that project. I haven’t seen Obsessed, I have no desire to see Obsessed, but the idea sounds like a safe bet.
Unfortunately, I can’t speak to the cable company deals or the actor’s contracts, but I thought it might be useful to look at this question from the other direction.
Markxxx nailed the answer perfectly.
I used to work for a film studio and would see the deals - both for cable channels and for movie theaters.
Studios rent their libraries in packages to cable channels - so for every “good film” you get, you are sort of stuck with a bunch of duds. This way, they can help pay for those films that never broke even in the box office or in DVD sales/rentals. Lots of films that barely made a nickel on first release eventually break even after a few years of foisting it on cable channels as part of a package.
Even movie theater chains get stuck with this deal. Let’s say the big blockbuster, “The Hobbit” is coming out soon - every theater knows the lines will be around the block for weeks and is fighting to get that film in their theater. So, that film studio will also make sure if they get The Hobbit, they HAVE TO take their next dozen films and show them as well - and those could be the next Rob Schneider bomb and Waterworld II in 3-D…films they know are not going to do well.
BTW, for film theaters they also have a special pay rate. For instance - the first week 95% of ticket sales go to the film studio. The second week 85% goes to the film studio and week 3 only 70% goes to the film studio. So, every week the film stays in the theater, the more percentage the actual movie theater makes from the film. This is partly why popcorn costs $125 a tub - that is their biggest moneymaker - not the films.
Thus, a film like AVATAR that stuck around in theaters for weeks and weeks was a gold mine for the movie theater owners…every week it continued to play to full houses was more and more percentage for them to take.
Actors with big names usually work out better deals for later residuals. Small, unknown actors will usually get a fee and a paltry amount (if anything) for the film when it shows later. Plus, there is lots of “creative” bookkeeping that can ensure a film never really makes a profit - so if you are stupid and get a deal that gives you, say, 2% of the “PROFIT” of the film, you are screwed - on paper that film will never, ever make a profit. Hollywood entertainment lawyers earn their keep to try to get their clients money once a film is released - no easy task.
Then again, someone like Tom Hanks would get his 5% upfront - that means, he gets 5% of the gross of the film before any fancy bookkeeping kicks into gear. Those deals are few and far between.