REPRESENTATION + BOX OFFICE Why Mickybo flopped

Note the lack of official reviews.

**a linked, more recent film to consider alongside this: Warp's '71**

LINKS:
IMDB.
BoxOfficeMojo.
Wiki.
RottenTomatoes.
Trailer; VoD.
Culture NI feature.
Fan-made video (young boy).
Russian fan-made video/trailer?
OST as YouTube playlist.
1st 10 minutes + playlist.

Son of Rambow Wiki; trailer; BoxOfficeMojo;
WT2 IMDB.



This was one of Working Title's WT2 productions, their shortlived Indie-style subsidiary for low budget films:

IMDB's list for WT2

IMDB figures; BoxOfficeMojo puts it at $465k - but still a UK release only.

BOX OFFICE, AND A POTENTIAL AUDIENCE LOST?
This film came out around the same time as Son of Rambow; both films were about two boys obsessed with a movie (Rambo; the Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). The film set in southern England did much better at the box office ... TWENTY TIMES better!!!

UGC #IvorIsComing to Shaun of the Dead

'The text' extends far beyond the 'product' officially released...

[Hoping to finally find some time in a few weeks to work through months of mainly smartphone-sourced posts and properly format/illustrate these ... and here's another for that growing catalogue...]

Great example of the UGC concept which provides a rather funny demonstration of why Gauntlett, Gillmor and more are right to write of "the former audience" in the web 2.0 era (OK, so the shift to social media online dominance gives some sway to the web 3.0 label, but that's yet to gain the same currency).

Scroll to the bottom of the Unilad article linked below [NB: comments, fairly typically, contain strong language, and the article itself contains some - I've linked a Love, Actually alternative at the bottom] and you'll see a doctored SotDead still, one of many filmic responses to the viral mocking of an Irish hipster. I'll share a screenshot in due course.

Working Title, never mind their conglomerate parent NBCU or SotD's distributor, have no control over this - though surely smarter film firms will be keen to share, encourage and maybe even (albeit with risks of backlash) create such UGC?

There's convergence here too: a website accessed through a social media platform reporting on and sharing Twitter and Instagram trending content which features many film references, and which I, like most, accessed and viewed on my smartphone before further sharing on Blogger!

Franchising: the curious case of WT's Cornetto Trilogy

IN THIS POST ...
- A look at what we mean by franchising, with examples from Working Title
- The concept of hybridity, and why producers and distributors combine genres
- The example of the Corentto Trilogy (for both hybridity and franchising): the budgets, box office, trailers + links for each
- Analysis of how these might reflect WT's production strategies:

-  strong long-term creative relationships
- emphasis on popular genres; hybridity
- 15-ratings
- franchising
- intertextual references (postmodernism) 
- star strategy
- narrow representation of Britain?
- enviable international distribution ... lost?
- closing WT2: whither the WT low-budget films? 

HEGEMONY OF THE FRANCHISE
Franchising, alongside the tentpole strategy (itself rendering four quadrant audience targeting virtually mandatory for would-be blockbusters), has become a predominant model for film producers, one encouraged by distributors looking for easy-to-market titles with built-in recognition and existing audiences, and exhibitors looking to reduce the element of gambling involved in selecting titles for their busy multiplexes.

This post will consider the Cornetto Trilogy...

The big story for the past decade, building on the Michael Bay template of CGI spectaculars, with narrative of secondary concern, has been the seemingly endless line of Marvel and DC Comics superhero comic book adaptations, with 2013 no exception and no sign of any let up in this flow. There are some who loudly decry this trend (eg), notably Alan Moore. If not these then other sci-fi/fantasy epics, from Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter and now The Hunger Games and The Hobbit, alongside animated titles such as Shrek, Toy Story and Monsters Inc, have formed the cinema diet for the bulk of the movie audience, with some horror, comedy and rom-com hits breaking through and an occasional straight or period/costume drama. Split sequels with single book adaptations running to two films is another growing trend.

Indie report on the 2013 UK top ten

Of the 2013 UK box office top ten, only 3 weren't part of a franchise - and the past tense is significant as The Croods will definitely and Frozen ('original' but based on Hans Christian Andersen's Snow Queen) will most likely have sequels:

Iger [Disney CEO] also revealed to Fortune that a stage version of the film, which features voice overs from Broadway stars Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff and Josh Gad, is currently under discussion at the House of Mouse ....
In addition, movie audiences may soon be treated to a sequel of the Nordic-themed saga, following strong sales of licensed toys based on the film.[BroadwayWorld.com]
The Croods received generally positive reviews, and proved to be a box office success, earning more than $587 million on a budget of $135 million,^[4] and launching a new franchise, with a sequel and TV series already put in development.^[9] [Wiki]

'71: Initial thoughts, review

TBC
Went to see '71 at Bradford's National Media Museum on its day of release, October 10th 2014. Alongside about a dozen others in total; a very sparsely attended screening (including one patron slowly consuming a huge tub of frozen yoghurt with a tiny spoon - knitting might be a better option there to keep the hands busy!). I'm told this is fairly common: until The Guardian review comes through, there is often limited awareness of non-mainstream films like this, an interesting reflection of the ABC1 skew of the NMM's staple audience.

As the DVD will be a while (presumably) in coming, I fervently scribbled down notes afterwards, some of which I'll sum up below. You could save yourself the bother, and just watch Mark Kermode's R5 review below ... the be-quiffed master pundit raised some very specific reference points which I'd noted myself, although I think my own take was always going to be somewhat informed by being a Northern Irish viewer of this ostensibly 'Troubles' movie.

HISTORY OF WT's Impact on UK Film Biz

An Assessment of the Work of Working Title and It’s Effect On The British Film Industry

Working Title films was founded in 1984 by Sarah Radclyffe (Who would later leave the company to be replaced by Eric Fellner in 1992) and Tim Bevan. The company’s first notable success was the 1985 film My Beautiful Laundrette, a story of a young Asian man’s battle to ‘make it’ in London during the Thatcher years. The film stars Saeed Jaffrey and features a breakthrough performance by Daniel Day Lewis and was both a critical and commercial success for the fledgling studio, picking up two BAFTA nominations, and an academy award nomination for best screenplay. The success of My Beautiful Laundrette enabled Working Title to establish themselves as a serious production company and attract the attention of backers Polygram in 1992, and also the attention of the major American studios who were interested in distributing Working Title’s projects internationally.