What you want to see from Joss next

POSTED BY: Zeek
UPDATED: Tuesday, October 5, 2010 21:33
VIEWED: 5088
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TWO

Monday, October 4, 2010 11:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
Quote:
Originally posted by two:
Mark Zuckerberg offered Joss $100 million for 22 TV episodes, direct to DVD, each a standard 45 minutes long, on whatever subject. That whatever really interested Joss, who responded with, "Now I know what I'll be doing after Avengers." Joss made a counteroffer, "I'll give you 44 episodes, and throw in two made-for-TV movies, for double the money." So the deal was made for two seasons of Whatever, the next Whedon TV/Internet project.

Can you cite this? I can't find anything that mentions it, and that seems like it'd kinda make the news somewhere.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

The story about Joss' Whatever TV deal is just as silly as Mark Zuckerberg's guest appearance on The Simpsons last week. . . But we can dream, can't we?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

THEHAPPYTRADER

Monday, October 4, 2010 11:29 PM

Hey, how 'bout that. Completely changes the dynamic when you know what the name is. I just assumed this guy was some producer type, and a little googling has made me feel rather embarrassed lol. (note to self, look up names you don't recognize before posting)

STORYMARK

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 1:01 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by two:
Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
Quote:
Originally posted by two:
Mark Zuckerberg offered Joss $100 million for 22 TV episodes, direct to DVD, each a standard 45 minutes long, on whatever subject. That whatever really interested Joss, who responded with, "Now I know what I'll be doing after Avengers." Joss made a counteroffer, "I'll give you 44 episodes, and throw in two made-for-TV movies, for double the money." So the deal was made for two seasons of Whatever, the next Whedon TV/Internet project.

Can you cite this? I can't find anything that mentions it, and that seems like it'd kinda make the news somewhere.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."
The story about Joss' Whatever TV deal is just as silly as Mark Zuckerberg's guest appearance on The Simpsons last week. . . But we can dream, can't we?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg

I thought it sounded like BS (from math alone, no single season costs THAT much). Just thought Id get confirmation.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

TWO

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 1:27 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
I thought it sounded like BS (from math alone, no single season costs THAT much). Just thought I'd get confirmation.

It's high quality show. I got the idea for $100 Million from: www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/education/23newark.html

I can add that Mark Zuckerberg insisted that actress Jewel Staite be a leading cast member of the Whedon Whatever TV/Facebook project and be paid at least $125,000 per episode. Staite responded to NY Times by saying, "For that kind of money I'll add to Joss Whedon's legend by having his lovechild." It was apparent to reporter Richard Pérez-Peña that Staite was joking, although Staite claimed that she was serious. "If it's a daughter, I'm naming her Kaylee."

The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity", where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/two

BRUCEPLUTO

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 4:48 AM

Don’t know that it could ever happen, but I’d truly enjoy seeing the credits roll and seeing Joss’ name come up on an upcoming episode of DEXTER. Did a season 4 marathon of the show this past weekend and really enjoyed it. Be fun to see what Joss would do with the character.

Also Chuck I think could really benefit from the Joss touch. Fedak could use a few fresh ideas in the show……and what can I say about Castle!!? A Joss/Fillion team-up would likely make past episodes of the show resemble a “sand Castle”……just a little pun.

Anyway, those are a few of the side-bar projects I’d like to see Joss get involved in while maybe getting ready to plug the new start of a new (old) space western…….Hey I can dream can’t I?

WE hold, BPZ

GWEK

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 2:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
I thought it sounded like BS (from math alone, no single season costs THAT much).

Depends on your cast. If you've got Hugh Laurie and Charlie Sheen...

Seriously, though, 100 million for a season--especially a direct-to-DVD series, with no apparent support from outside vendors--isn't unreasonable.

That comes to just over 4.5 million per episode. The FIREFLY pilot, which was actually two episodes, cost 10 million (or 5 million per episode). While this was the most expensive episode of the season, I don't imagine costs have gotten significantly cheaper since 2001/2002.

Ultimately, though, the pricetag of 4.5 million per episode would be erroneous, because the 100 million total would also have to cover start-up and development (which would drain a significant portion of the cash away), marketing (without a network to support it, any television spots would be pricey), development and maintenance of ancillary materials (eg, official web site and forums, as well as any related products), and design and production of the actual DVD set.

Honestly, I think 100 million might be right about on the nose for the overall cost of a well-produced first season. Sure, it would likely make back a significant portion in DVD sales and rentals, but since a TV series makes a significant amount of its profit via commercials, I don't think there would be tons of cash to devote to next season.

All theoretical, of course, but kinda interesting nonetheless.

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

GWEK

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 2:29 PM

To the main point of the post, however: what do I want to see Joss do next?

I don't really care what he does, but I hope he gets his magic back.

The tragedy of FIREFLY took something from him that I don't know if he'll ever get back.

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

STORYMARK

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 3:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by GWEK:
Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:
I thought it sounded like BS (from math alone, no single season costs THAT much).

Depends on your cast. If you've got Hugh Laurie and Charlie Sheen...

Seriously, though, 100 million for a season--especially a direct-to-DVD series, with no apparent support from outside vendors--isn't unreasonable.

That comes to just over 4.5 million per episode. The FIREFLY pilot, which was actually two episodes, cost 10 million (or 5 million per episode). While this was the most expensive episode of the season, I don't imagine costs have gotten significantly cheaper since 2001/2002.

Ultimately, though, the pricetag of 4.5 million per episode would be erroneous, because the 100 million total would also have to cover start-up and development (which would drain a significant portion of the cash away), marketing (without a network to support it, any television spots would be pricey), development and maintenance of ancillary materials (eg, official web site and forums, as well as any related products), and design and production of the actual DVD set.

Honestly, I think 100 million might be right about on the nose for the overall cost of a well-produced first season. Sure, it would likely make back a significant portion in DVD sales and rentals, but since a TV series makes a significant amount of its profit via commercials, I don't think there would be tons of cash to devote to next season.

All theoretical, of course, but kinda interesting nonetheless.

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

The most expensive regular series so far has been LOST, which ran around 2.5 - 2.8 million an episode, with a $14 million pilot. So, even on the high end, it still wouldn't have cost nearly $100 million for a season. And that's for one of the biggest TV hits of the last decade.

Sure, Sheen makes a lot on his sitcom, but it's again, a huge hit, and the rest of the show is pretty cheap.

Thinking the pilot is representative of an average episode is totally off. Most of the development costs are included in the pilot's budget, which includes everything from assembling the writing team, to designing and building costumes, sets and props (sure, that stuff is continually done throughout a season, but the lion's share is done for the pilot). Those start up fees you mention are why pilot budgets are so high, and thus why yes, 4.5 per episode would be outrageous, because episode budgets don't cover start-up.

There are some outliers - HBO spent $125 million on Band of Brothers, but that had the backing of Spielberg and Hanks, and required shooting all over Europe with a huge cast and crew - very expensive.

And a series done at that price, with only a DVD release planned (and thus zero ad buys/revenue) would have to be a massive success to make any money back.

So, sure, a number like that is theoretically possible - but it would be really stupid from a business perspective. Especially for an untried business model. Something like that would be lucky to get a start-up budget of half that number.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

GWEK

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 4:08 PM

I'm not disagreeing that it would be a terrible business model (in fact, I think I even hinted at that).

By the way, I never indicated that I thought the cost of the FIREFLY pilot was indicative of each episode's cost (although I can see how you could read that into my post). I know what the other episodes cost, relatively speaking. But consider that Joss doesn't follow traditional TV standards, so if he were given carte blanche, there's no reason to believe he wouldn't use all that money on quality and further development. If there's any man in Hollywood who can make a 3 million dollar episode look like it cost 15 million, it's him.

Anyway...

As I noted in my intial post, you're looking at the 100 million as just the cost of the episodes, averaged out, which fails to take into account marketing and ancillary work. Presumably, for the initial post, that covers EVERYTHING.

A direct-to-DVD series would likely need to be marketed very similarly to a movie if it were to have any broad market, and movies often spend almost as much in advertising as they do on the acutal project.

I think the 100 million would break down something like this:

2-episode pilot (including start-up/development): 15 million (for the record, this is significantly less than the 50 million rumored pricetag on BOARDWALK EMPIRE's pilot episode)
Marketing: 30 million (which I think is conservative)
Ancillary costs (Web site, etc): 1 million
Development and production of DVDs: 4 million?

That's half the money right there. That leaves 2.5 million per episode, for the remaining 20 episodes, which, admittedly, is on the high side, but just think about what Joss could do with that!

(As an aside, LOST may be the most expensive long-running successful show, but there are others with a higher per-episode pricetag. For example, KINGS was reputed to cost 4 million per episode... which very likely contributed to there being only 12 episodes...)

Again, my assertions are as follows:

1) 100 million is not an unreasonable cost for a direct-to-video DVD season of 22 episodes.

2) It would, however, be bad business.

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

STORYMARK

Tuesday, October 5, 2010 4:33 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by GWEK:

As I noted in my intial post, you're looking at the 100 million as just the cost of the episodes, averaged out, which fails to take into account marketing and ancillary work. Presumably, for the initial post, that covers EVERYTHING.

Uh, no I'm not - I directly addressed that. Aside from marketing costs, which are generally not counted in the initial budget anyway.

Quote:
A direct-to-DVD series would likely need to be marketed very similarly to a movie if it were to have any broad market, and movies often spend almost as much in advertising as they do on the acutal project.

Yep, which makes it even harder to recoup such a ridiculously high budget.

And you're also talking about movies with a theatrical run, which provides a far, far higher profile. The model you are talking about would be more akin to a DTV movie, and thus a much smaller return.

Quote:
I think the 100 million would break down something like this:

2-episode pilot (including start-up/development): 15 million (for the record, this is significantly less than the 50 million rumored pricetag on BOARDWALK EMPIRE's pilot episode)
Marketing: 30 million (which I think is conservative)
Ancillary costs (Web site, etc): 1 million
Development and production of DVDs: 4 million?

Guessing at numbers doesn't make sense. You're also way off on Boardwalk Empire - it's $50 million for the first season, not the pilot alone. Though some sites are running the 50 mill figure for the pilot alone after the New York Post guessed at the budget, so maybe you read one of those. The pilot's cost, according to HBO and The Wall Street Journal, was a bit under $20 million, with the remaining 30 being spread out over remaining 11 episodes putting the per-episode budget at about 2.8 million per). And even then, a lot of that was costs that will be spread across the season, like the $5 mill they spent building the boardwalk set - a cost that will not continue (aside from upkeep) over the rest of the season.

Quote:
(As an aside, LOST may be the most expensive long-running successful show, but there are others with a higher per-episode pricetag. For example, KINGS was reputed to cost 4 million per episode... which very likely contributed to there being only 12 episodes...)

Uh.... again, I did address that (did you actually read my post...?). mentioned there were instances with higher budgets. But, as you point out - those shows tend to not be sustainable. Which again gos to show that the number you're talking about is very, very unrealistic.

Quote:
1) 100 million is not an unreasonable cost for a direct-to-video DVD season of 22 episodes.

2) It would, however, be bad business.

Well, I'll agree with you on the latter. But all the evidence out there tends to say that the former is rather ludicrous.

www.stillflying.net: "Here's how it might have been..."

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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