It'll likely also do well on home video, digital and longer term streaming, especially with the sequel confirmed. Once it became clear that it was a part 1, a lot of people likely held off on watching it until Part 2 was definite. If you don't know if the story will be completed, why bother watching half of it? But now, that worry is gone.
Movies like this don't tend to be huge box office movers (admittedly, a lot of it is difficulty advertising and high profile things like Paramount blatantly abandoning their high-concept sci-fi slate a few years back to Netflix) but like I said before, they stick around.
Edited by Zendervai on Nov 4th 2021 at 9:54:43 AM
And if Part 2 does well maybe we'll finally get movie adaptations of other books. But even then that's a long way off.
Closest we got to that was that one Sci-Fi channel miniseries that covered Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.
Because dammit I want to see a movie version of God-Emperor Leto II in all his freaky sandworm hybrid glory.
Edited by M84 on Nov 4th 2021 at 9:55:52 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedPart 2 I think has an even chance of doing well. The long gap between the two can hurt, but it also gives the first part two years worth of time to get ingrained in pop culture and for people to share Part 1 with other people. Also hopefully it'll be less, uh, fraught to go to theatres in a lot of places.
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It’s been discussed extensively why that didn’t happen (mainly because the “LOTR model” was a tremendous financial risk that would have definitively sunk everyone involved if it failed), but I will also add that Legendary was also skittish because their previous blockbusters did not do well (they’re actually exploring sale/merger options now). Sure, maybe in an ideal world some billionaire shelled out $200M no strings attached to help finance a back to back shooting, but that’s not how the industry realistically tends to work.
However, as also pointed out, production on this might be a tad shorter because of all the models and stuff that they can just reuse.
I agree that a home video release with extra goodies (because HBO Max) would do really well. But of course they’re not announcing such a thing until months after it’s out of theaters.
Apparently The Expanse’s uncancellation and move to Prime happened in part because Bezos liked the show, so it’s not completely without precedence I guess.
Right, I’ve always figured Prime Video was a loss leader (since they make most of their money from hosting services anyway) but
are getting a truly nutso amount of money.
Edited by Synchronicity on Nov 4th 2021 at 9:23:14 AM
The Expanse also sits in a weird category where it's really expensive for a smaller basic cable channel (I like a lot of stuff from Sy Fy but they're really not one of the big players) but by premium TV standards, it's a low to average budget.
With the Wheel of Time though, there was a recent interview where it came up that Bezos himself is basically uninterested in the property. But it got picked because it's basically the remaining big fantasy property that's never been adapted. (For real, I don't count that weird fake pilot with Billy Zane that aired at 3 in the morning) and he wanted the buzz from that. Lord of the Rings is setting off a lot of red flags though because the combination of the excessively massive budget, the first time showrunners, the filming in a cheap country, it resembles a money laundering scheme quite a bit. It's probably not, but it's still unnerving.
Super-rich people bankrolling giant productions is basically not a thing that happens, apparently because of all the hidden costs that Hollywood folds into other things. Like, sometimes when five different things are being filmed in the same studio complex for the same studio, they'll all share the craft services budget. Not super common, but it happens, and it lowers the budget for each individual project.
That being said, a lot of the weird and excessively specific small movies you find on streaming services were bankrolled by eccentric rich people. Sometimes it's a money laundering thing, but sometimes it's a person who actually is really passionate about their weird ultra-low-budget fantasy epic that makes Xena look like French art cinema and just paid to make it themselves because none of the studios would give them the time of day.
Edited by Zendervai on Nov 4th 2021 at 10:44:11 AM
The other element is just that a studio would never agree to a funding arrangement like that. It's basically handing control over to a complete wildcard. What happens if a billionaire funds a production of something, constantly interferes, and it turns out incredibly bad? I mean, the last time a relatively high profile project was bankrolled by a billionaire, we ended up with the Atlas Shrugged movie trilogy, which was just a humiliating embarrassment for everyone involved and he couldn't keep the budget up as partners withdrew with each entry.
The studio might not have lost any money, but their reputation would take a huge hit, and none of the studios want to risk that.
That, and the 1000+ year Time Skips might turn people off.
Children of Dievas - my webcomic about the Northern Crusades

I can't believe there are people in the comment section actually defending that as superior to the current movie.
Edited by slimcoder on Nov 3rd 2021 at 2:53:26 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."