Why I wouldn't invest in the Corner Gas movie (but am anyway)

An article in the National Post a few days ago with the headline "Corner Gas movie’s $8.5M budget is 75% from government funding despite success of the original TV series" implied that it was surprising and unnecessary for a successful Canadian TV series to require public funds for its film incarnation.

In reality, that requirement is neither surprising nor unnecessary. What it is, however, is probably the equivalent of flushing public money down the toilet, or handing it to the already affluent Brent Butt, which might be even more offensive to Canadian taxpayers.

Movie people tend not to like to make public predictions about the commercial success of movies, for the obvious reason that if a prediction is wrong, it could come back to haunt them. I worked in Hollywood for a production company which garnered about a dozen major Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture and two for Best Original Screenplay, for movies I was involved with during my time there. With all due modesty, I was very good at my job and one of the things I did extremely well was to predict at the development stage whether a movie would be able to perform at the box office.

Most Hollywood executives would have you believe that such a thing can't be done. They'll tell you predicting movie performances is "like trying trying to capture lightning in a bottle."

That's not true. While it can't be done without any margin for error, and it is actually hard to predict whether something will be a runaway hit like Star Wars, or a fluke success like The Blair Witch Project, it's not hard to tell whether a movie has the basic elements of a success or failure. The rather obvious reason that Hollywood execs don't want you, or in particular their bosses, to believe that it can is because most of them just aren't very good at it. But if anyone is worse at predicting success than a Hollywood executive, it's a Telefilm Canada executive.

Yes, Corner Gas The Movie absolutely does need government funds, and I'll tell you why I think the movie, which has not yet gone into production, will never come close to making it all back.

As its producers and fans like to remind us, Corner Gas was the most successful Canadian television series ever. In Hollywood terms, that's only slightly less impressive than being the most successful Ukrainian television series ever. It's like saying you've got the world's third smartest tree frog. That's all very interesting to those few people who are interested in that sort of thing, but really, who cares? And outside of Canada, no one cares about Corner Gas.

I've watched the show a few times and I don't hate it. It had the usual "let's laugh at the antics of silly hicks" formula that's been around since before I watched Green Acres reruns as a little kid. Corner Gas'  writing wasn't very clever and had no edge to it, but it wasn't the worst thing on TV. Although that's an easy bar to get over, particularly when the main Canadian competition was CBC's painfully unfunny Little Mosque on The Prairie.

So let's look at Corner Gas The Movie's potential for success. First of all, movie versions of TV shows with the original cast are very rarely hits. Star Trek is the notable exception, but it took 10 years after cancellation and massive worldwide cult status already in place before that happened. In Canada, as an example of how these things don't work, we have the precedent of Red Green: Duct Tape Forever.

We also have the example of The Trailer Park Boys movies, but there is a substantial difference. Those movies are made on lower budgets, less of which is government-funded, and unlike Corner Gas, the Trailer Park Boys have an edge and a natural audience among a desired movie-going demographic, (kids in their mid-teens to late twenties and stoners), where Corner Gas has none.  And even then, on the $5 Million budget that The Trailer Park Boys Movie cost, it still lost money, which doesn't leave much hope for the Corner Gas movie.

Who will be starring in Corner Gas The Movie? That's right - no one that anyone outside of Canada has ever heard of, and other than Brent Butt, no one that most people in Canada could name. Which means that all of Corner Gas The Movie's receipts will be from the Canadian domestic box office, and that isn't exactly for the movie business what Saudi Arabia is for oil.

If you're wondering how much a movie has to gross to be profitable on an $8.5 Million budget like that of Corner Gas The Movie, the answer is a hell of a lot more than $8.5 Million. There are advertising costs, which are massive for movies, plus distributors' and exhibitors' fees involved. There may be some variances, depending on marketing strategies and other factors, but in general, the rule of thumb is that a movie needs to gross three times the production budget to break even.

So even giving it a break on estimates for some of those factors and giving it a generous estimate on TV and DVD sales, on an $8.5 million budget, Corner Gas The Movie would need to make at least $20 million at the box office just to stay out of the red.  Since it is a virtual certainty that all of that money will have to come from a Canadian audience, it means that, just to break even, one out of every 22 Canadians will have to pay to see Corner Gas The Movie in a theater.

What do you think the odds are of that happening?

Based on those figures, I wouldn't put a dime into producing Corner Gas The Movie. Although I am anyway, as are you, courtesy of the choices made on our behalf by the Canadian government.

Rob Ford on Jimmy Kimmel

The usual hateful, biased media suspects are railing about how Rob Ford was "mocked" and "embarrassed" but if you actually watch the videos below, which are Ford's complete appearance on The Jimmy Kimmel Show last night, you'll see he comported himself well, gave a great promo for Toronto, and that Kimmel genuinely likes and seems to respect him.

Rob Ford has delivered most of what he promised as mayor and he certainly didn't lie about his policies, only to change them once in office. That if nothing else makes him stand out from his political rivals and opponents.

Access Hollywood F's up Season 3 of Homeland for Jennifer Lawrence

Spoiler alert!!! Don't watch this video if you haven't seen all of the 3rd season of Homeland 

(I've never seen a single episode of the thing myself, but Damian Lewis was fabulous in Band of Brothers) 

The Professor - war hero

Russell Johnson, who played The Professor on Gilligan's Island, died yesterday at the age of 89.

From The New York Times:

The Professor was a good-looking but nerdy academic, an exaggerated stereotype of the man of capacious intelligence with little or no social awareness. Occasionally approached romantically by Ginger (and guest stars, including Zsa Zsa Gabor), he remained chaste and unaffected.

But he was pretty much the only character on the show who possessed anything resembling actual knowledge, and he was forever inventing methods to increase the castaways’ chance of rescue. Still, among the show’s many lapses of logic was the fact — often noted by Mr. Johnson in interviews — that although the Professor could build a shortwave radio out of a coconut shell, he couldn’t figure out how to patch a hole in a boat hull.

Avid fans — very avid — are probably the only ones to remember that the character’s name was actually Dr. Roy Hinkley

Amid the many obituaries, there seems to be little mention of his heroic record as a pilot in the Pacific Theater in World War 2, so this information from wikipedia is worth repreating:

After high school, in the midst of World War II, Johnson joined the United States Army Air Forces as an aviation cadet and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He flew 44 combat missions as a bombardier in B-25 Mitchell twin-engine medium bombers. While flying as a navigator in a B-25 with the 100th Bombardment Squadron, 42nd Bombardment Group, 13th Air Force, his plane and two other B-25s were shot down in the Philippines in March 1945 during a low level bombing and strafing run against Japanese targets. The planes were hit by intense flak and had to ditch in the waters off the port of Zamboanga. During the ditching, he broke both his ankles and the radioman next to him was killed. Johnson earned a Purple Heart for this mission. He was also awarded the Air Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three service stars, the Philippine Liberation Ribbon with one service star, and the World War II Victory Medal. He was honorably discharged with the rank of first lieutenant on November 22, 1945. He then joined the Army Reserve and used the GI Bill to fund his acting studies at the Actors Lab in Hollywood.

Martin Luther King and Merv Griffin

Martin Luther King was interviewed on The Merv Griffin Show in 1967

Eddie Murphy returns to Arsenio Hall

In case you didn't catch this from a couple of weeks ago...

James Woods talks about being a geek and the future of science

An idiot's guide to Game of Thrones

LA TV Weatherman falls for Bart Simpson-like prank

Happy birthday to Hugh Janus!!

Kathy Shaidle waxes philosophical about Sun TV news

Cable news in its current format — the breathless pace, the reliance upon what seems to be one rather oddindividual’s worn out, twenty year old Rolodex for “expert” guests (Dick Morris!?) — has been with us since CNN launched in 1980.

Despite all the criticism and parody, that format is so entrenched I doubt it can be dramatically altered.

However, if you’ll forgive a foreigner for boasting, we Canadians might be able to offer a few tips.

The Sun News Network debuted up here a few years ago. Dubbed “FOX News North” by liberal detractors even before it aired, Sun, being new, had no “bad habits” to unlearn, and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to start from scratch and thus avoid some of its predecessors’ mistakes.

They operate on a budget that probably wouldn’t keep CNN running for a day.

Yet Americans who’ve watched Sun segments via YouTube, my blog and elsewhere typically exclaim, “Wow! FOX News wouldn’t even do that! Not even John Stossel is THAT cool!”

Here’s what they’re talking about… 

Debate Ratings Show Obama Picked the Wrong Night to Flop

...though debates are often muddled affairs with no clear winners or losers, some are fairly clear-cut in their impact. Wednesday night’s set-to between President Obama and Mitt Romney was one such encounter. The left-wing talkers on MSNBC, the establishment types chattering on CNN and the conservatives on Fox News all agreed Romney won hands down. But the post-debate pushback from Democrats has centered not only on disingenuous “fact checking” but on the idea that the debate either didn’t matter much or that the Republican’s superiority was a superficial effect that dissipates on closer inspection. But in this case the liberal spinners have a problem: the audience. 

It turns out ratings for this debate went through the roof. The Nielson ratings agency reports that 67.2 million Americans watched the debate on television at home. That’s the second highest audience for such a debate in history (number one was the first debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in 1980). And that doesn’t count those who either watched it in airports, hotels, bars or other venues or the many millions who watched it on their computers, tablets or phones. In other words, the president picked the wrong night to mail in his performance.   

Star Trek: Captain Worf - coming to a small screen near you?

Michael Dorn, who played the lovable Klingon Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has confirmed he is working on developing a spin-off series tentatively titled Star Trek: Captain Worf.

I'd watch at least the first couple of episodes!

The Night Strangler

After the success of the TV Movie The Night Stalker, this sequel, The Night Strangler was made and led to the short-lived but iconic Night Stalker series starring Daren McGavin as investigative reporter Carl Kolchak.

Why does the Futurama theme keep running over and over in my head!?

American Invasion takes terrible toll on Iraq

The US has turned their TV talk shows into Jerry Springer



h/t Tarek Fatah

Doofus blogger appears on Michael Coren Show

Many Thanks to SdaMatt2 and Blazing Cat Fur:

The anniversary of TV's first interracial kiss

Like much great science fiction, Star Trek was often also social allegory. It predicted science and influenced  generations of scientists, in effect becoming self-fulfilling prophesy.

In 1968, television networks were afraid to depict interracial relationships. The very first time a kiss between a white and black person happened on a TV show was on Star Trek, who in this case certainly did boldly go where no TV show had gone before. In the episode in question, Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura were compelled to kiss by the telekinetic powers of aliens.

Today is the anniversary of the day that kiss was broadcast.

Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura, was incredibly hot back then. If I were Captain Kirk, I would have sent a thank you note to the aliens.