Comments on: Refractive Heuristics, or Why SoaP Failed to Launch

By: Spike

Spike — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 13:21:31 +0000

Ouch.
I think Ann has a great idea about the podcast. You can play Costello to my Abbott. Or better yet, you can play Teller to my Penn.
Okay, okay. I promise not to comment anymore unless it adds to the conversation. Sometimes I just can’t help myself…

By: Tom Ehrenfeld

Tom Ehrenfeld — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 03:41:09 +0000

Cool. You bring rocks and I’ll bring a wikipedia and we’ll duel. For seconds you’ll have Obelix and I’ll have Jason Biggs from American Pie (“Verisimilitude. Regurgitation.”)
Hey, I forgot to thank you for warning me not to overthink stuff. Does that mean if you and I are combined, we get…thinking?

By: Ann Handley

Ann Handley — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 01:45:35 +0000

Is there nothing better than watching two really smart and articulate guys arguing?
Seriously. You guys should produce a weekly podcast debate or something. This is priceles….

By: Spike

Spike — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 01:11:44 +0000

I knew I liked you, Tom.
Now where did I put those big rocks?

By: Tom Ehrenfeld

Tom Ehrenfeld — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 21:34:23 +0000

Thanks for the love, Spike. Tell ya what, we don’t even have to agree to disagree, we can just disagree, which works fine for me. Sorry about the big-word thing hurting your head, for me it’s usually big rocks or small hats that have that effect, but if it persists I would recommend a couple of Tylenol and a dictionary (also known as a very big book of big and small words).

By: Spike

Spike — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 20:49:41 +0000

Tom,
I simply linked back to my post so I wouldn’t have to repeat myself. Obviously you read into that as you read into my entire point on how you’re missing the point. Don’t complicate it. And don’t overthink it.
Moving on:
A) Your use of big words makes my head hurt.
B) New Line did a lot more than you’re giving them credit for
C) Did you see the movie?
D) I can’t talk about this anymore. Let’s agree to disagree and get on with life.
Nothing but love for ya,
Spike

By: Tom Ehrenfeld

Tom Ehrenfeld — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 17:02:41 +0000

One more time–.
Spike, I am not versed in buzz etiquette, and as a result I find your comment directing me to a company-sponsored blog where I can read your point to ring false. Is this a Road House type of “let’s take this outside” type of taunt? A self-promotional act? Or yet another solipsistic gesture which, by the content-free trigger of generating traffic, proves its own point?
That said, having gone and read your point about how I missed the point on SoaP, I will first make it clear that I never correlated the quantity of the buzz with the quality of the product. My point is that in the short term, especially with pop culture products like this, the “short tail” performance rarely matches up. I’d like to believe that over the long term (oops, long tail) the two tails at least slouch towards convergence.
As for the point you raised about the power of the Internet community to rescue the movie, of how “the public got behind the steering wheel,” as you put it, prompting a seachange aided by the production company’s courageous decision not to try to squelch the early zealots––all I can say is that there’s data, there’s facts, and then you have the conclusions that individuals are more than eager to draw from them.
We all know the hyped-up tales of pre-release SoaP buzz. We know about the decision made by New Line to support rather than battle the web-heads (which let’s face it is really not such a big deal–when did the ain’t-it-cool guy get co-opted as a critic?) We do know that most of the critics thought the movie sucked, just as they did with, say, the Pirates sequel, which also reached number one B.O. for the weekend, albeit on a much greater scale than SoaP, and whose long-term performance will, in my opinion, exceed that of Sam Jackson’s vehicle.
What we don’t know, and which I think it would be foolishly to conclude, is how well these various factors correlate. I’ve been feeling increasingly numbed by the amount of false conclusions eagerly drawn by folks who mix selective parts of the data, plot points from the SoaP apocrypha, and sloppy theories about world 2.0 to form grand new theories from all this. This is essentially a content-free meta-argument where the form of the argument is far more instructive than the stuff within, and there’s no surprise that everyone involved is exhausted with it.

By: Spike Jones

Spike Jones — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 01:52:22 +0000

Tom, let me refer you to my previous post: http://brainsonfire.com/blog/snakes-on-a-you%e2%80%99re-missing-the-point/
‘Nuff said
XOXOXO,
Spike

By: Lewis Green

Lewis Green — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 16:07:12 +0000

Tom, I remain committed to my previous post: pre-promotion in the entertainment industry, of course, is necessary. But it will not determine nor even affect success or failure in substantial ways. Ultimately, the quality of the product is the determining factor. As for the bloggers who were influenced to see the movie, I, too, would like to see the numbers. I for one wasn’t moved to attend. Small sample of one but I bet I am not alone.

By: Mack Collier

Mack Collier — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:05:41 +0000

“The foregone conclusion that the movie would soar has been a result of what scientists call “refractive heuristics.” As defined to laypeople like ourselves, this is a dynamic whereby people who share and gather information in one dominant media format–such as the Internet–tend to believe that all things related to said media are more important than others, all things being equal.”
IOW, my frame of reference is your frame of reference?
But I don’t think that everyone assumed that SoaP would be a hit, we assumed it would be a hit among bloggers, and I think it was. The question was, would there be enough bloggers excited about this movie to make it a blockbuster hit?
I did some digging Sunday, and found the following interesting stats:
The production budget for SoaP has been set at anywhere from 30-36 million, depending on what source you go by. The marketing budget is another 2-10 million, again depending on what source you go by. That gets us to a cost of 32-46 million, with an opening gate of 15.3 million.
So that means that SoaP covered 33-48% of its cost on opening weekend.
The numbers for Pirates of the Caribbean floated as well, with production being anywhere from 225-250 million, and promotional being anywhere from 100-150 million. This site quoted the total production and promotional budget for the film at 400 million.
So that means that Pirates production and marketing budget was anywhere from 325-400 million. With an opening weekend take of $135, 634,554, Pirates covered 34-42% of its cost on opening weekend.
Those numbers look pretty similar to me, in fact it looks as if SoaP did slightly better.
So the end result, despite what the MSM claims (And they totally reversed themselves, on Friday they were donning SoaP as the hit of the summer, on Sunday it was a bomb), SoaP had a very strong opening weekend.
But the key question is: What would SoaP’s opening weekend have been if New Line had sent a ‘cease and desist’ letter to Brian Finklestein back in January, and had tried to close down Snakes on a Blog? Whatever that number is, subtract it from 15.3 million, and that’s the value New Line realized on opening weekend by embracing ‘fanboys’ on the internet.
I’d say that number is at least 10 million. Not bad.
“Now we just have to sit back and figure out how to take the lessons from it.”
Bingo. Their ability to figure how exactly what lessons this taught them, is the key moving forward. Hint: It’s not that ‘internet buzz’ can be used to promote a movie, and I think New Line is smart enough to realize this. Their competitors might not be as smart.