Will Smith's "Focus" (pictured) did middling business in its opening weekend, so where does this leave his career?; filmmaker Ed Burns on the highs and lows of his career since bursting on the scene with "The Brothers McMullen"; Valiant Entertainment has a simple goal: make comic book like they used to be made.
'Focus' continues Will Smith's trend of box office disappointments
Will Smith’s latest film, "Focus," debuted at number one at the box office this weekend, yet it only grossed $18.7 million. That’s significantly less than Smith’s expensive 2013 flop, “After Earth," which opened to $27.5 million and grossed just over $60 million domestically.
"Focus" stars Smith as a veteran con-man whose grand plans run awry when he gets in too deep with an amateur con artist played by Margot Robbie.
Still, the poor debut of “Focus” — which some experts predicted would debut to as much as $22 million — might mark the continuing box office decline for the actor, who previously was one of Hollywood’s most bankable names.
Brent Lang, Senior Film and Media Reporter at Variety.com, spoke with The Frame today about the decline of star power and whether the weather was partly to blame for the low opening of "Focus."
Interview Highlights:
Relative to a budget of $50 million, $18.7 million is not a disastrous opening, but when you compare that to Smith's star value, how do you rank it?
It's certainly a soft opening. I agree that it's not a disaster, but it's a disappointment for Smith, who was looking for some sort of demonstration of his star power, particularly after "After Earth" crashed and burned in this country a couple years ago.
I heard that Warner Brothers, the studio behind the film, blamed cold weather or snow in some parts of the country. Does that feel legitimate, or is there some other thing that's going on here?
They might be correct in that you could have maybe shaved about a million dollars off the box office, given the bad weather in the south and in the midwest. However, that cuts both ways, and it's not as if there's been great weather in large parts of the northeast over the last few months, [when] films like "Fifty Shades of Grey" and "The Spongebob Movie" have done great box office. So it's not as if nobody's going out and seeing films.
Maybe Will Smith's fans are just afraid of cold weather?
[laughs] It could be true.
But let's put this in context: over the last 15 years, Will Smith has probably been the most bankable star in Hollywood. Is this just a sign of changing times, or did he make some bad choices in terms of movies?
I'm not particularly sure that this is all Will Smith's fault. You could make an argument that he stayed away from the screen too long at certain points. There was about a four-year gap between "Hancock" and "Seven Pounds" [in 2008] and "Men In Black 3," and that's an eternity in Hollywood. However, in that time what drives people to go out of their homes and go to the movies changed somewhat, and I think star power has diminished overall. A lot of films that rely on that kind of "face on the poster" marketing just aren't driving people to the theaters at the same levels that "Fifty Shades of Grey" or "The Hobbit" are able to.
Meaning that it's the concept, not the star, that's driving people to theaters. And even though we don't know what the foreign numbers are going to be for "Focus," in the past he's been one of the rare African American actors who is as popular, if not more popular, overseas than he is in the United States. "After Earth" did only $60 million domestically but it did almost $200 million overseas. So a large part of the "Focus" story is not yet told. Is that fair?
Yeah, I think that's fair. I'm hearing from insiders that break-even for "Focus" is about $125 million, so it's possible that it could make its money back, and even potentially make some money for the studio.
If you're a producer with a Will Smith movie in the works — there's another "Bad Boys" film coming out, and he's also slated to be in "Suicide Squad" — would you be a little bit nervous? Would you start worrying that he's no longer a guaranteed draw?
Those films that you just mentioned are interesting because they show that Smith's team is somewhat concerned that he's not a big enough draw to open original concepts. "Suicide Squad," a comic book movie, shows that he's looking to connect with a younger generation of moviegoers. His biggest test will probably be ["Concussion"], a football drama that he has at Sony Pictures and that's slated to come out next winter.
Valiant CEO wants to 'simply just make great comics'
It's a strange time to be a fan of superhero comics — you know, the kind made out of paper. Sure, there are still dozens of comic book series about caped crusaders and dark-night detectives, but the real money is in superhero movies, TV shows and video games.
And that's what makes Valiant Entertainment so odd. It's a tiny company with a simple goal: make comic books like they used to be made. That is, make them to be read, not seen or played. Vulture's Abe Riesman has this look at the resurrection of Valiant:
Valiant's CEO and co-founder, Dinesh Shamdasani, explains: "Everybody in this office loves comics more than anything else. No one in here wants to be a big-time movie producer or a big-time video game developer. Everyone in here wants to make comics."
The company began its first life in 1989, when Marvel's editor-in-chief, Jim Shooter, jumped ship to start what he hoped would be the first real threat to Marvel and DC. But their superheroes were totally bizarre. There was Shadowman, a jazz musician possessed by a voodoo spirit. There was Rai, a samurai who protects Japan in the year 4001. And X-O Manowar, a 5th-Century Visigoth who gets abducted by aliens, steals a sentient suit of armor, and ends up in the present day.
Growing up in Hong Kong in the 1990s, Shamdasani had no idea that these characters weren't as popular as Superman or Spider-Man. So when a friend gave him his first issue of X-O Manowar, all he knew was that it blew his pre-teen mind.
"It had an awesome cover of X-O fighting a red-black version of X-O, and I looked at that and I was like, Oh my god. You can't get this in video games, you can't get this in movies, you can't get this in TV. You can't get this storytelling anywhere."
By 1993, Valiant had two of the year's 10 best-selling comics — millions of issues were sold. The company was also big on high-profile gimmicks such as free issues, trading cards, and covers that looked like they were made of gold.
But it didn't last. The whole comic book industry swelled into a bubble by the mid-'90s, and when the bubble burst, Valiant was crippled. They finally went bust in 2004, and by then comic enthusiasts thought of the company and their characters as campy relics of the '90s. Well, not all enthusiasts felt that way.
At that point, Shamdasani was living in California, doing executive work for Universal Studios. In his free time, he was an obsessive member of an online message board for hardcore Valiant fans, and one day he heard a rumor that the bankrupt company's characters were being sold for only $50,000.
Shamdasani says he "was so pissed off. $50,000? It's worth way more than that! X-O Manowar alone is worth more than that! I was so angry. Not that I had $50,000, but come hell or high water, I was going to get it if I had the chance."
And, somehow, he did get the chance. Despite having zero business experience, he abruptly dedicated his life to snagging the rights to his favorite comic book characters. Shamdasani raised the cash with the help of a childhood friend, quit his job, and threw himself into a two-year legal battle for the rights.
If that sounds crazy, it's because it basically is. But Shamdasani argues: "I knew that if I didn't do this, I would never see another Valiant comic in my life. I could kiss that goodbye. And that was just a sad scenario for the world."
After securing the rights to the characters came the real challenge: rebuilding a comic book company using characters no one had cared about in years. The company decided to follow in the footsteps of the Oakland Athletics and the lessons of Michael Lewis's famous book, Moneyball, opting to snatch up writers, artists and executives who were undervalued by the big comic publishers.
Finally, in 2012, the reborn Valiant began publishing comics, which were based on the original characters, but featured all-new stories. So, unlike stories in the Marvel and DC universes, you didn't need any prior knowledge in order to understand what was happening. It was a breath of fresh air unlike anything else on the stands.
They still use lighthearted gimmicks, which are a little silly, but their storytelling has made them a success. Valiant has published 18 different series, with more on the way this year. Critics admire Valiant's fresh, simple approach to superheroes, while fans obsess over the details of the shared universe in which all the Valiant characters live and interact.
Shamdasani knows that superhero success is hard to achieve without licensing the stories, and he says that we might see Valiant movies in the future. But he wants Valiant to always focus on comics first — everything else comes second. As he says: "We have the freedom to not have to follow in the wake of an upcoming media tie-in, like a big movie or video game, and we don't have to serve larger licensing goals. We can simply just make great comics."
Filmmaker Ed Burns on his 'Brothers McMullen' break and surviving 'director's jail'
Filmmaker Ed Burns burst onto the scene in 1995 with his debut film, "The Brothers McMullen." Shot for only $25,000, it won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and instantly made Burns a star in the indie film world.
But as often happens, fame was fleeting. Burns' follow-up movies, including "No Looking Back" and "Sidewalks of New York," were neither critically nor commercially successful, and soon he was struggling to find people willing to bankroll his work.
Now 47, Burns has written a memoir, "Independent Ed," which recounts his roller coaster career and the trials and tribulations of learning how to make micro-budget films as efficiently as possible. And in another surprising turn, Burns is developing a police drama called "Public Morals" for TNT.
When Burns joined us at The Frame studios recently, we asked him about the impetus behind writing a memoir, the adventurous creativity being cultivated on TV, and the lessons he's learned over his 20-year career.
Interview Highlights:
So is this memoir a filmmaking primer, or a cautionary tale?
Over the course of 20 years and making 11 indie features, I had the greatest high that any independent filmmaker could have — "Brothers McMullen" going to Sundance, winning the Grand Jury Prize, and getting distribution.
Had you told me than that five years later I would be put in "director's jail" and no one in town would be interested in looking at one of my screenplays, I wouldn't have believed it.
So what I tried to do with the book was share and be as candid as I could with all of the flops and the disappointments, but at the same time I was able to regroup and re-imagine my career, so I thought that there were some pretty valuable lessons in there.
Did you really have some sort of epiphany into the mistakes you made, your missteps, and what you could have done differently?
I realized that there are very few careers where folks are able to stay at the top for 20 years. Our careers are a series of highs and lows, hits and misses, and if you have two or three misses in row, then sometimes your career can end right then and there.
During my darkest days, I always knew that if I got really desperate I could write another script that we could do with that ["Brothers McMullen"] business model. That movie turned into "Nice Guy Johnny." Most people probably haven't heard of "Nice Guy Johnny," which wasn't nearly as successful as "Brothers McMullen," but it did get some very nice reviews and it played at a ton of film festivals.
But more importantly, I recognized that indie film fans' viewing habits had changed and most people weren't going out to the art house theaters the way they used to in '95. Why don't we just go straight to [video on demand]? And the movie ended up making several hundred thousand dollars of profit for us, and it got me back into the conversation.
In the book, one of the things I try to say is that you have to create your own opportunities. It would have been very easy for me to say, Welp, I guess it's over. I've had a good, long 18-year run, and this is the end.
But one of the things the book also suggests is that your early success was almost more curse than blessing, and it's specifically about the movie "She's the One," that you made at Fox Searchlight, who distributed "Brothers McMullen." In the middle of getting that film out, you...decided to renegotiate a contract and ask for a little bit more, and as you write in the book, you felt that they took it out on you by not supporting "She's the One," which became the target of their ire.
It's another cautionary tale. At that point, I'm in the business for maybe 12 months. I have a team of advisors, agents and lawyers, and they're advising me that there was more money on the table and I could have more control than I had on the last film. What 27-year-old kid doesn't hear that and say, Well, yeah, of course, you guys know better than me, so let's go for it?
In the book, I then explain that my friends at Searchlight were disappointed that we played hardball with them, and they let me know that it affected our relationship and what we might do together moving forward. I never made another movie for Fox Searchlight, and they never picked up any of my films for distribution.
I knew in my gut that that wasn't the right decision, but again, when you're 27 you don't know any better. If you're that kid coming out of Sundance this year, you're as red hot as you can be, and your agents are telling you all these things and there's some part of you that says, That just doesn't sit well with me, you have to trust your gut and listen to yourself.
You're now working on a TNT series called "Public Morals." What has your background in independent filmmaking brought to that experience? Do you try to retain some of the independent spirit that's infused so much of your work?
This new project has been the dream gig for me. The amazing thing that's happened over the last 15 years on cable television is that the executives at those networks have recognized that the best shows aren't born or delivered by committee. And when there's one person at the helm with a singular vision, great art comes from that.
Two years ago, I was lucky enough to work with Frank Darabont on a TNT show called "Mob City," and it was on that set where I started to think, Maybe TV is an option for me. We did six episodes, so he made six little, indie films, and I thought, Look at this -- the indie film aesthetic has moved over to cable television. I think my 20 years of making these low-budget, run-and-gun shows certainly helped in making this.
This Q&A is just an excerpt of the entire interview. Listen to the audio for more!