Snakes is a Motherfucking Flop!...
Okay, so flop is perhaps too harsh, it did recoup half it's budget, but it is clear that the Internet hype didn't pan out. Shocking. Sarcasm doesn't always translate well in journal entries, so let me just spell out that I'm not at all surprised that "Snakes..." failed to live up to the viral-video hype. Honestly, when I was watching major news networks run stories about SOAP's opening weekend (starting Thursday, I might add), I could smell the below-expectations-revenues a mile away. SOAP will be a great movie to watch on DVD with a bunch of friends, drunk and/or high. SOAP would probably have been a great drive-in movie back in the '70s, you know, one of those "how did this get made" pieces of crap like the "Billy Jack" series (okay, the first "Billy Jack was alright -- but all the sequels just have me in a fit of unending laughter). However, in the modern market of fickle movie-theater patrons, SOAP did not exactly spell "blockbuster" to me. Then again, I didn't really expect "Pirates 2: Johnny Depp Gets Paid Electric Bugaloo" to start minting its own currency this summer. However, in the pantheon of successful movies I would have never believed would achieve even a modicum of success, SOAP doesn't even get a footnote. I could conceivably believe SOAP would be successful, because it's the type of stupid, less funny every time you hear the premise movie that often briefly becomes a cultural touchstone. However, the same hype that made SOAP hilarious a few months ago (when the hype was pretty much contained to the Net and "Best Week Ever"), is exactly what hindered SOAP's success upon release.
Honestly, I could have potentially seen SOAP as a cult-hit, along the lines of countless straight-to-video horror movies I've intentionally rented over the years, some that have been so successful, they've spawned higher-budgeted straight-to-video sequels. Had SOAP been released quietly with very little in the way of marketing and advertising, I have no problem believing it may have achieved some pretty astonishing box-office numbers. I don't think it would have ever been boffo at the box office, but I could see it breaking out. I certainly never would have put the movie on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, only to have to write a weary, "what happened?" article two weeks later. The only thing really shocking about any of this to me, is how many mainstream press outlets became obsessed with SOAP and utterly convinced it was going to be the next "Blair Witch Project." To my memory, and please correct me if I'm wrong, "Blair Witch" is the only truly boffo film that owes nearly all of its success on buzz generated by the Internet. Okay...the Sci-Fi Channel special helped too -- but a $22,000 film that goes on to gross more that $200 million worldwide, based largely on Internet buzz/documentary hoax, is an anomaly that won't repeat itself very often, if ever again. Knowing the rarity of Internet buzz truly impacting box-office performance, I can't fathom why so many major publications bought into the madness.
Unfortunately, in a trend that is becoming disturbingly overly common in journalism and news in general, the mainstream press (by that I mean non-niche newscasts, newspapers, magazines) plucked a more "underground" Internet obsession and turned it into a full fledged entertainment story. Suddenly, in what could really be seen as a metaphor for a much larger issue, a very niche story, born out of the so-called "new media," has been plucked by the "old" media and misrepresented as something much greater and further reaching than its reality. We see this all the fucking time: old-media outlets "reporting" on Internet phenomena cultivated by a small -- albeit vocal -- community as if the story is actually representative of the true cultural undercurrent. Invariably, these niche stories turn out to be just that -- niche, and the old media continues to look old and out-of-touch. As a result, businesses and fucking financial markets, hell even political parties, start laying stake into these overly-embellished stories, believing the lie purported by the blogosphere -- although to be fair, also purported by old media -- that the blogosphere actually matters and that funny web videos represent what people REALLY want to watch at the movies. Making exceptions for those rare lightening-in-a-bottle occurrences like MySpace, Google, iTunes and YouTube (and it should be noted these are services or portals to content, not content in and of themselves), this just isn't true.
I will concede that the Internet has a huge and demonstrable impact on the success of films or television shows after they are released on DVD; the online buzz usually correlates to the home-video success, an increasingly vital piece of the film's overall profitability. As a result the home release window is becoming suffocatingly short (if studio's are really concerned with saving the box-office, they should pad out the home releases...waiting an extra two months won't hurt rentals/sales and will create more of an incentive to see the film in the theater), with DVD's ready to go before the film is even released. It should be noted, however, that even post-release success on DVD doesn't necessarily mean that a larger non-DVD market exists for a particular genre or franchise. Much of "Family Guy's" resurrection is credited to the DVD sales, and indeed, they undoubtedly provided evidence of a rabid and growing fan base. What gets far less credit, is "Family Guy's" success in re-runs on Adult Swim and TBS, especially in key demos (young adult males) that advertisers crave. While I have no doubt that Fox would have found a way to resurrect "Family Guy" in some way, based solely on the DVD sales; it's performance in reruns is what got it back on primetime television. I'll support this theory with another Internet/DVD success: "Firefly." "Firefly" has a truly dedicated online fanbase, and that certainly impacted the DVD sales of the complete series. However, despite the success on DVD, the feature film, released in theaters (which was just dumb...they should have saved the money and gone straight-to-DVD...just not lowered the quality), "Serenity" was an unequivocal flop, both in the US and worldwide.
Ultimately, I think what brought down SOAP was that the media hype got the reason for the Internet obsession completely wrong. SOAP was lauded and loved because of the utter-ridiculousness of the premise. Samuel L. Jackson, who is fucking brilliant, made it even better by making statements like, "Once I heard the premise, I was in" and being totally transparent about his need to get paid. The obsession was with the potential the film had to be "so bad it's good" a la MST2K, and not a genuine palpable level of build-up for the film's release, a la "Pirates 2" or "Spider-Man 3." Furthermore, the majority of the people that really heralded SOAP online were NOT the target audience of the movie itself, and probably had very little interest in actually seeing the film in the theater. Had the mainstream press paid attention to the tonality to the blogs about the film, the expectations wouldn't have been so over inflated and the industry wouldn't be looking like assholes this afternoon.
But as I said, this is just one example of a growing trend in taking niche interest for true undercurrent. Howard Dean, and more recently Ned Lamont (although I've been calling Lieberman a Covert Republican since I was like 13...and at 13 I was a self-identified "Young Republican" -- *shudder* to my credit, I hated Lieberman at 13 too -- because of his stance of video game violence/censorship) have both been lauded as the grass roots poster-boys for the new Democratic party -- only to falter -- in Dean's case anyway, Lamont still has half a chance, -- upon confronting the election machine known as GOP. As much as I hate the Republican Party, I have to concede -- and in a strange way respect -- their air-tight voter machine/campaign assembly-line. Rather than rely solely on the vacuum of the Internet/Bloggers that share the same "group think" like the Dems, they've integrated the web into their well-oiled system. The productivity and ingenuity in all of it is pretty amazing, even if what it is perpetrating is pure evil. I have the exact same feelings regarding Wal*Mart -- hate who they are/what they reprsent, can't help but be in awe of their distribution and stocking mechanisms and productivity.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I will admit, that I did buy a "Words On a Shirt" girl-beater in red last week. Despite my smugness of SOAP's inevitable BO disappointments...I still bought into the mother-fucking hype.
And with that...I'm Out.
Honestly, I could have potentially seen SOAP as a cult-hit, along the lines of countless straight-to-video horror movies I've intentionally rented over the years, some that have been so successful, they've spawned higher-budgeted straight-to-video sequels. Had SOAP been released quietly with very little in the way of marketing and advertising, I have no problem believing it may have achieved some pretty astonishing box-office numbers. I don't think it would have ever been boffo at the box office, but I could see it breaking out. I certainly never would have put the movie on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, only to have to write a weary, "what happened?" article two weeks later. The only thing really shocking about any of this to me, is how many mainstream press outlets became obsessed with SOAP and utterly convinced it was going to be the next "Blair Witch Project." To my memory, and please correct me if I'm wrong, "Blair Witch" is the only truly boffo film that owes nearly all of its success on buzz generated by the Internet. Okay...the Sci-Fi Channel special helped too -- but a $22,000 film that goes on to gross more that $200 million worldwide, based largely on Internet buzz/documentary hoax, is an anomaly that won't repeat itself very often, if ever again. Knowing the rarity of Internet buzz truly impacting box-office performance, I can't fathom why so many major publications bought into the madness.
Unfortunately, in a trend that is becoming disturbingly overly common in journalism and news in general, the mainstream press (by that I mean non-niche newscasts, newspapers, magazines) plucked a more "underground" Internet obsession and turned it into a full fledged entertainment story. Suddenly, in what could really be seen as a metaphor for a much larger issue, a very niche story, born out of the so-called "new media," has been plucked by the "old" media and misrepresented as something much greater and further reaching than its reality. We see this all the fucking time: old-media outlets "reporting" on Internet phenomena cultivated by a small -- albeit vocal -- community as if the story is actually representative of the true cultural undercurrent. Invariably, these niche stories turn out to be just that -- niche, and the old media continues to look old and out-of-touch. As a result, businesses and fucking financial markets, hell even political parties, start laying stake into these overly-embellished stories, believing the lie purported by the blogosphere -- although to be fair, also purported by old media -- that the blogosphere actually matters and that funny web videos represent what people REALLY want to watch at the movies. Making exceptions for those rare lightening-in-a-bottle occurrences like MySpace, Google, iTunes and YouTube (and it should be noted these are services or portals to content, not content in and of themselves), this just isn't true.
I will concede that the Internet has a huge and demonstrable impact on the success of films or television shows after they are released on DVD; the online buzz usually correlates to the home-video success, an increasingly vital piece of the film's overall profitability. As a result the home release window is becoming suffocatingly short (if studio's are really concerned with saving the box-office, they should pad out the home releases...waiting an extra two months won't hurt rentals/sales and will create more of an incentive to see the film in the theater), with DVD's ready to go before the film is even released. It should be noted, however, that even post-release success on DVD doesn't necessarily mean that a larger non-DVD market exists for a particular genre or franchise. Much of "Family Guy's" resurrection is credited to the DVD sales, and indeed, they undoubtedly provided evidence of a rabid and growing fan base. What gets far less credit, is "Family Guy's" success in re-runs on Adult Swim and TBS, especially in key demos (young adult males) that advertisers crave. While I have no doubt that Fox would have found a way to resurrect "Family Guy" in some way, based solely on the DVD sales; it's performance in reruns is what got it back on primetime television. I'll support this theory with another Internet/DVD success: "Firefly." "Firefly" has a truly dedicated online fanbase, and that certainly impacted the DVD sales of the complete series. However, despite the success on DVD, the feature film, released in theaters (which was just dumb...they should have saved the money and gone straight-to-DVD...just not lowered the quality), "Serenity" was an unequivocal flop, both in the US and worldwide.
Ultimately, I think what brought down SOAP was that the media hype got the reason for the Internet obsession completely wrong. SOAP was lauded and loved because of the utter-ridiculousness of the premise. Samuel L. Jackson, who is fucking brilliant, made it even better by making statements like, "Once I heard the premise, I was in" and being totally transparent about his need to get paid. The obsession was with the potential the film had to be "so bad it's good" a la MST2K, and not a genuine palpable level of build-up for the film's release, a la "Pirates 2" or "Spider-Man 3." Furthermore, the majority of the people that really heralded SOAP online were NOT the target audience of the movie itself, and probably had very little interest in actually seeing the film in the theater. Had the mainstream press paid attention to the tonality to the blogs about the film, the expectations wouldn't have been so over inflated and the industry wouldn't be looking like assholes this afternoon.
But as I said, this is just one example of a growing trend in taking niche interest for true undercurrent. Howard Dean, and more recently Ned Lamont (although I've been calling Lieberman a Covert Republican since I was like 13...and at 13 I was a self-identified "Young Republican" -- *shudder* to my credit, I hated Lieberman at 13 too -- because of his stance of video game violence/censorship) have both been lauded as the grass roots poster-boys for the new Democratic party -- only to falter -- in Dean's case anyway, Lamont still has half a chance, -- upon confronting the election machine known as GOP. As much as I hate the Republican Party, I have to concede -- and in a strange way respect -- their air-tight voter machine/campaign assembly-line. Rather than rely solely on the vacuum of the Internet/Bloggers that share the same "group think" like the Dems, they've integrated the web into their well-oiled system. The productivity and ingenuity in all of it is pretty amazing, even if what it is perpetrating is pure evil. I have the exact same feelings regarding Wal*Mart -- hate who they are/what they reprsent, can't help but be in awe of their distribution and stocking mechanisms and productivity.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I will admit, that I did buy a "Words On a Shirt" girl-beater in red last week. Despite my smugness of SOAP's inevitable BO disappointments...I still bought into the mother-fucking hype.
And with that...I'm Out.