With the cast and director involved in this project, I thought we were looking at an artsy neo-noir, like fellow FilmDistrict releases "Drive" and "Looper." The fact that Vince McMahon is involved severely dampens my enthusiasm, as everything that WWE Films has put out so far has been a bargain-basement piece of crap.
shareWell the trailer is fantastic so......
shareWho cares where the money comes from?
"It's not that I'm stupid. I just don't think sometimes." - Colin Farrell
Because those who provide the money usually demand input regarding the outcome of the final product.
I'm pretty sure you've must have heard of several examples of a director delievering a final movie product to the production company, only to have them butcher it to pieces and dumb in down in order to appeal to "a wider audience", slaughtering a good quality movie in the process.
I'm having trouble with a patient of mine; he's a teenage drug addict who's being molested. By me.
Not true. People with money are smart. People with money want more money. People with money want their movie to make as much money as possible. Because they are smart, they know that means letting the professionals do their job. They stay out of it.
shareLets not give Vince McMahon too much credit, eh?
shareSorry, that's not how the world works.
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm2339870/
I don't think I've laughed so hard in years. Thank you.
shareWhat movie is ur quote from?
shareI kind of care where the money comes from... because, based on the money he puts into his other business ventures, the execution is often lacklustre. If he wants to move into serious film production, then he needs to change the name of that branch of his empire... because the writing in wrestling is usually soap-opera cheap, especially these days... It's tainted by association.
"Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?!"
[deleted]
It's not a case of ignoring the other three - it's about the debatable reputation of one of them...
"Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?!"
[deleted]
I wasn't even aware of ANY of them until the OP started this topic... If anyone is complaining, it's them (and why is 'complaining' such a bad thing, anyway?!) I just happen to agree that it could constitute a 'bad' thing...
Ok - the director? Mildly interesting, as we wait to see if he's sold his soul to Hollywood, or managed to retain his indie sensibility... I don't know for sure, but I suspect the former.
The actors can do nothing if the writing is substandard - which, in the case of things the WWE are involved with, it usually is... THAT is my original point. There is always the chance they could break away from the mold; I am just dubious.
I don't see how judging the people who PICK the talent is inherently any more 'silly' than judging the talent themselves? Whichever way you do it - whether for good or bad - you're still speculating, because the film isn't out yet... Of course, you could say wait until the film is released, but then we might as well not have message boards for upcoming films. It's a prediction. It may be wrong, but as of now, I don't have a good feeling.
"Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?!"
[deleted]
Yes, but they could conceivably have a hand in selecting the writer, could they not? ... and given the quality of writing on their other productions, I am not hopeful.
Sorry to disabuse you of your relentless positivity, Mr Brightside.
"Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?!"
No, because they were not involved when the movie was greenlighted. In 2011, it was a 100% IMGlobal indie movie.
http://www.deadline.com/2011/11/afm-im-global-selling-dead-man-down-wi th-colin-farrell-and-dragon-tattoos-niels-arden-oplev-and-noomi-rapace /
WWE entered in the game quite late just before the shooting of the movie around April 2012.
http://www.deadline.com/2012/04/dead-man-down-filming-set-as-wwe-studi os-joins-im-global-in-co-financing/
The movie is written by J.H Wyman who is also one of the producer.
Wyman is one of the writers of "Fringe" (I like very much the show) and wrote 10 years ago "The Mexican" with B. Pitt and J. Roberts.
Fair enough. My other point about them changing the name of their production arm still stands, though... Serious movie fans are less apt to take the film seriously if it's associated directly with WWE. Having McMahon involved and even some of his stable of 'talent' is fine, but just try to keep quiet about it! Cross brand promotion has become more sophisticated since the days of "No Holds Barred".
"Your mother puts license plates in your underwear? How do you sit?!"
It seems these two most recent films (Dead Man Down and The Call) have something the other films did not have. Academy Award winning actors/actresses (Terrence Howard and Halle Berry respectively). So I guess Vince is putting more funds to get these veteran thespians to bring in a wider audience and give more credibility to the films they have their names attached to.
"The Day" is a movie that was released by WWE that had ABSOLUTELY no wrestlers in it AT ALL. They only BOUGHT the distribution rights to it.
All I need is one mic...
This movie is actually very good. In fact, it may be the best movie of the year so far. Who woulda thunk it? But, I think it's true, despite WWE's previous track record. It's really well done. Give it a chance!
Just shows you can't judge a book by its cover. And, you never know what you're gonna get.
Like I said, surround your projects with better actors/actresses, you get a better end result. It's not like the McMahon's don't have the cash to spare. Look at all the money they pumped into Linda's hopeless and laughable Senate run.
lets at least hope the movie is rated R and not the usual bad wwe type film
Rob Zombie is one of the greatest movie directors today
It's already been rated R
Let Freedom Ring!
[deleted]
well i do love Rob Zombie,s habbit of turning every Character into White Trash. i do not applaud any movie in the genre and have seen plenty of bad movies that had good gore but a bad script
Rob Zombie is one of the greatest movie directors today
I was very surprised to see them involved with this at the end of the trailer.
drew
I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
- Minor Threat
Well they can make almost any trailer look good. And as long as the WWE keeps there nose out of the creative side of things im sure it will be ok.
sharewell the goal of WWE is to make money; you have to start somewhere with your available budget and mindless movies with lots of explosions helps in raking in enough money to make better movies and i think with dead man down we're seeing this
shareI see they couldn't resist featuring one of their wrestlers in the film - http://www.wwe.com/inside/overtheropes/wwestudios/dead-man-down-previe w-26082149
shareYou haven't seen the movie yet and some of you have been already complaining? Wait a little before any judgement...Give a chance.;)
shareAccording to a friend of mine (who owns a video shop, and thusly has to keep up on new developments in the film industry) has said that WWE films is becoming a "proper" film distribution company. The only example he could come up with at the time was a film named "The Day", which was a low budget, post-apocalyptic flick worth watching. Go to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1756799/?ref_=fn_tt_tt_15.
BTW, I can't say this for sure (as I haven't watched wrestling since the days of Hulk Hogan, The Hart Family [they live fairly close to me, if anybody cares], Randy "Macho Man" Savage [RIP], Ultimate Warrior, etc.) BUT...
... I'm fairly sure there were no wrestlers in the film. If anybody watches the flick (and you all really should) and sees a wrestler, please let me know.
"I am insane... and you are my insanity" - James Cole, 12 Monkeys
-AK
It's clear that Wade Barrett(Current Intercontinental Champion) is playing one of Terrance Howard's henchmen.
shareOkay, now I'm REALLY confused. I think we can agree that there's no wrestlers in the WWE film "The Day", but how is it "clear that [a wrestler]" is in "Dead Man Down"? I mean, the movie won't be released for another two months, so I doubt you've seen it; Wade Barrett isn't listed in any cast lists for the movie; so was he doing an "uncredited cameo" or something? And I still want to know your source for movies *2 months* before their release date!
"I am insane... and you are my insanity" - James Cole, 12 Monkeys
-AK
Because Wade Barrett has been spotted in the trailer.
shareThat's what I figured, but if he's not even in the credits, how big can his role be?
"I am insane... and you are my insanity" - James Cole, 12 Monkeys
-AK
Probably not big!
Actually it was an indie production at the start announced to be fully financed by IM Global.
WWE stepped on board as co-partner in eatly 2012 just before the start of filming.
Yeah Harfang, that probably is what happened. The head of WWE's accounting (or whatever) said, "We gotta pick up the pace here people, or else look farward to exiting the building... and never being aloud back in!!" So they did a quick study and found that companies like Anchor Bay and EOne were making CRAZY cash with a simple buisness model.
...AB and EO would accept low budget submissions, especially if a) the movie's got lotsa people to shoot lotsa guns; b) the movie is a "psychological thriller", esp. with a last minute twist thrown in; c) the movie has some of the recent "cheap horror film elements", like poltergiests that you can't see; or THE DEVIL HIMSELF posessing a young person (usually female) - the young person just has to be limber, the lighting techs have got to know when to mess with the lights, the sound guy either messes with the yp's vocal qualities (or can get a few actors and dub in their voices in post-production; and **d) no main actors over 25 years old, and they have to look great in a bathing suit!**
...and the more it sticks to Rules a-d, the greater the chance someone will buy it from Best Buy for $6.99. Of course, they will sell 50,000 copies of the movie, and now AO/EO/or WWE just added $350,000 to their coffers. Of course, that's MINUS... a) the 3 cents to make a DVD, so that's a $1500 cost; b) plus they gotta sell and ship them to the stores... that won't be more than 50 cents a disc, or $5000; plus c) they had to buy the rights to the movie from the filmmakers, and if you've SEEN a WWE/Anchor Bay/EOne movie, you know they don't cost more than $5000 to make. So the distributor buys the movie from the filmmakers for $10,000, and the filmmakers are giddy as hell!
...and WWE/Anchor Bay/EOne have made $350,000-[$1500+$5000+$10,000] = $350,000 - $16,500 = $333,500!!! Everybody makes out like bandits!
A similar situation happened around here in Oil Country. An oil company started growing exponentially thanks to the "Oil Boom". Now, this company had to hire security guards to watch the equipment when no one's there. First they called up a 3rd party security company (which means if they were paying the guards minimum wage - $10/hr - then the 3rd party security company was making somewhere in the range of aprox. $27-$32/hr). So, one day this Oil Company said, "Jeez, we could hire some guards to be 'in house'; pay them $15/hr - which means we could be pickier about the guards we hire! - and save about $15 per hour PER GUARD!!"
Next thing you know, they have hired so many guards that when the Oil Boom starts going away, they realize that they have a defacto "3rd party Security Company" of their own! And, because they had very good guards (cuz they were able to personally pick and choose during the boom), they quickly got the best sites in town, including all of the municipal sites. Every successful company in the world started with very humble roots.
JMHO...
"I am insane... and you are my insanity" - James Cole, 12 Monkeys
-AK
Wade Barrett is in the credits, just under his real name Stu Bennett
sharewell! wade announced on raw live that he is in the movie while sheamus mocked him
shareAs long as no wrestlers have big roles it will be fine. The trailer was exciting and the movie could actually be good.
shareThey need to change their logo for WWE Studios because as soon as I saw that W logo at the beginning of the trailer, I had low expectations for this film. Thank goodness there's a decent cast to change my mind before the end of the trailer.
_______________________________________
Stupid people make me angry.
If the trailer, story line, cast & director look compelling then why are people so quick to dismiss the movie just because one of the financiers is the WWE. This movie on the surface looks nothing like the typical WWE good guy vs bad guy smash em up flick.
Besides the WWE have made some decent movies really worth watching like "That's what I'am" and there have been actors that have successfully made the transition to film. Andre the Giant in "the Princess Bride" is one of my fav movies & the Rock in "Faster" was an excellent movie. So to say that wrestlers can't act is not really fair & not really giving the movie a chance.
I think if WWE just keeps the wrestler's out of the movies they finance and produce they'll be a lot more successful but trying to make Ted Dibiase into a movie star just doesn't work for me. John Cena doesn't work either. No connection to wrestling period works for me. I used to love wrestling but the stuff they put out today is so lame.
This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time. - Fight Club
I saw the trailer for this and noticed the WWE logo in it. Keep in mind, I am a wrestling fan (I still like to think of myself as such, despite not following it lately) but I can see that this is another move on the part of WWE buying distribution rights similar to when they bought "The Day." I might see this though. It actually looks good.
All I need is one mic...
WWE Studios is trying their hand at non-wrestler focused films. They want their Movie Company to be slightly out of that Wrestling spotlight to be taken more seriously in the movie biz(although it will be hard to break that image especially with the crappier films that have come out from them).
After their battle over the WWF name, They've gone from being "World Wrestling Entertainment" to "WWE, Inc." trying to be a general Entertainment brand as opposed to just a Wrestling Brand.
I don't see or skip a film on it's producers or directors or studios anymore, because I've seen a great many Movies that I did judge on who or what was involved with it and skipped it only to later become a massive fan after renting it or seeing it at a friends.
I think Vince McMahon knows that the theatrically released films where a wrestler headlined gradually began to decline in earnings around '12 Rounds' most of them after that were Direct to DVD or VERY Limited Theatrical releases. In order to save themselves they're now finally trying to "strategically diversify its slate of films" rather than assume that John Cena can carry both the WWE Title & be taken seriously as a terrible Actor on Both fronts of Movies & Wrestling.
Very well said immortalist and very true.
When did they stop being Titan Sports? Did that go away when they went from WWF "World Wrestling Federation" to WWE "World Wrestling Entertainment" or was that detached before the name change?
I remember before it was WWF Home Video, which I believe was started in the late 90's, they were going through Coliseum Home Video to distribute all of their PPV's and video productions.
This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time. - Fight Club
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Wow! I totally missed that. Well, all I can say is I see no WWE talent in the film, which has been there downfall with previous (WWE funded) films. They are wrestlers, and do well in the ring and on the mic for the most part. But they cannot carry a film.