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Bakker LII: Ol' Golgotterath Blues


Larry of the Lawn

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1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Why does that shoot the idea that TSA would need an insane budget out of the water? It would still need an insane budget.

i also find the fact that someone who is a huge Bakker fan is shitting all over The Similarion to be odd.

Its not that they wouldn't need a huge budget, but money doesn't fucking matter to Amazon... The just paid 250 mil for rights alone. What's so hard to understand here?

ETA: I'm not shittting on the Simillarion. Its is rather much like to see something new, different. It doesn't have to be TSA. I am a fan of a whole lot more series than TSA.

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Uh, whats hard to understand is you keep saying Amazon paying 250mil for LotR means the budget wouldn't be a concern for TSA. Which makes zero logical sense. TSA is going to need an insane amount of FX work. Way more so then probably all 6 Tolkien films put together. Amazon paying a lot for LotR does not change that.

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1 hour ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Nonsense. Money isn't a problem when you pay that much for rights to something. You know this. 

Money isn't a problem when you pay that much in rights provided you can show that the investment is worth it. Since Amazon is publicly traded, they need to be able to justify that payment for those rights, and show a reasonable return on their investment. 

Amazon is really, really good at being able to show things via data. They are probably the best in the business at this. They didn't spend $250m on rights without knowing ahead of time that it was a fairly reasonable thing to do, and that money would result in a number of benefits to the company that would outweigh the cost. 

It is unlikely that the same could be said about most other properties available. There are only a few that would likely work in that way, and even fewer that would likely work for the medium they're trying. 

The thing is that when you're willing to spend $250m on rights, you're only going to do it with minimal risk. This is why AAA games are often done with well-known franchises, why AAA movies are done with well-known franchises and stars, and movies like Inception were done ONLY after the director had made the studio a ton of money and he had made them agree to allow him to do it.

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17 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Honestly, I don't think an adaptation necessarily needs political intrigue and likable characters. Trying to do the Game of Thrones thing would be a mistake, IMO. [...] It doesn't have to be Game of Thrones, and if it tries to be, it will suffer for the comparison.

That's just the reason GoT was so successful, IMO. The idea of a TSA adaptation has been talked about by Bakker within the context of GoT's success. And you can't escape the GoT comparison, anyway, everyone will think that they're trying to capitalize on GoT's success by adapting another long-running fantasy series.

If you take out the characters and political intrigue from GoT no one would care for it. So what does Bakker have to substitute for that? Old sorcerers and wizards flying and shooting fireballs and waters at each other? I have a feeling that this will get laughed at when audiences see it (no, Gandalf doesn't disprove that). Those things just don't look good outside of book form, IMO. Especially not on a tv budget. And TSA is filled with them. You're better served just doing a first crusade historical fiction series without any magic. Let's not forget that most of the interesting fantastical elements (Consult, Gods, WLW, JE) are not in PoN, or play a very minimal role until you find out that they were mostly red herrings in season 7/8.

You also need the series to be received well by critics and pro reviewers who all like to harp on how much they don't care about the magic or the dragons or the white-walkers in GoT; they only care about the politics and character arcs.

There is just no good reason to adapt PoN/TSA over several other fantasy series that are better suited for TV and have considerably more fans eager to see an adaptation. WoT has sold a 100 million copies or something compared to TSA's 175,000 (according to TGO's flap). Abercrombie, Sanderson, Jordan, Lawrence and several others have books that are more likely to be adapted than Bakker.

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4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Money isn't a problem when you pay that much in rights provided you can show that the investment is worth it. Since Amazon is publicly traded, they need to be able to justify that payment for those rights, and show a reasonable return on their investment. 

Amazon is really, really good at being able to show things via data. They are probably the best in the business at this. They didn't spend $250m on rights without knowing ahead of time that it was a fairly reasonable thing to do, and that money would result in a number of benefits to the company that would outweigh the cost. 

It is unlikely that the same could be said about most other properties available. There are only a few that would likely work in that way, and even fewer that would likely work for the medium they're trying. 

The thing is that when you're willing to spend $250m on rights, you're only going to do it with minimal risk. This is why AAA games are often done with well-known franchises, why AAA movies are done with well-known franchises and stars, and movies like Inception were done ONLY after the director had made the studio a ton of money and he had made them agree to allow him to do it.

Right. I understand all of this. I get it, in not being obtuse. All I am saying is that if you gave Bakker or Abercrombie or whoever 5 mil in rights and spent whatever they wanted to make it a good adaption, in would rather see that. You can't look at me with a straight face and say that the budget for TSA would be too big when the paid 250 mil just for the rights to LotR. Its not me being obtuse, its thise of you who think Amazon couldn't afford to adapt TSA. Its nonsense. And was proving by what they are paying just for the rights to LotR! I understand money fine @Darth Richard II, I got stacks! Stacks of $1's, but stacks nonetheless.

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1 minute ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Right. I understand all of this. I get it, in not being obtuse. All I am saying is that if you gave Bakker or Abercrombie or whoever 5 mil in rights and spent whatever they wanted to make it a good adaption, in would rather see that. You can't look at me with a straight face and say that the budget for TSA would be too big when the paid 250 mil just for the rights to LotR. Its not me being obtuse, its thise of you who think Amazon couldn't afford to adapt TSA. Its nonsense. And was proving by what they are paying just for the rights to LotR! I understand money fine @Darth Richard II, I got stacks! Stacks of $1's, but stacks nonetheless.

(straight face)The budget for TSA would be WAY too big given the risk of it not doing well. 

This isn't a matter of Amazon not being able to afford it. It's a matter of them doing it and expecting it to reasonably succeed. One could say the same about basically anything - Goodkind, Abraham, Abercrombie, Donaldson, Kay, Vance, Lawrence...the list goes on and on. You could spend the money, and Amazon could afford it - but it would almost certainly be a massive loss for them. 

So no, they can't afford it, because they cannot legally spend $250m on a property that has virtually no chance of earning that back for them. That is corporate malfeasance, and would rightly get them sued. You saying that they can afford it is much like saying that I can technically afford to buy first edition copies of LotR. Sure, I have the money to do so - at the cost of my house, my family, my job, etc.

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21 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

You can't look at me with a straight face and say that the budget for TSA would be too big when the paid 250 mil just for the rights to LotR. Its not me being obtuse, its thise of you who think Amazon couldn't afford to adapt TSA. Its nonsense. And was proving by what they are paying just for the rights to LotR!

Amazon isn't giving out charity money here... they paid 250 million for the rights to LotR knowing that the movies are almost guaranteed to make a billion +. Amazon wouldn't shell out a dime on Bakker if they didn't think they would make a profit on it.

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20 hours ago, redeagl said:

LotR is a safe bet. They re going to get back what they paid in doubles, as sure as the sun is going to set tomorrow. That is not the case with Bakker ( Or any other fantasy author ) .

The people they bought the rights from wouldn't have sold it if its so easy to double your money, they'd have just made that money themselves (possibly hiring Amazon to do production).

Frankly what are they going to do with it - in terms of movies it's an exhausted property, you can't just remake the movies just yet and expect to turn a tidy profit. The audience has to forget some more the prior movies before they can be sold the same thing again.

These are the sorts of reasons people speculate on new IP.

But in the end it's the wangs that'll shoot down the project again. I'm presuming Scott is not signing away the creative rights, which if he did the production team would just remove the wangs. Lots of sranc with cute little loincloths.

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58 minutes ago, Callan S. said:

I'm presuming Scott is not signing away the creative rights, which if he did the production team would just remove the wangs. Lots of sranc with cute little loincloths.

Why not? There is a good chance that some deal is the only way to get the next series published without resorting to GoFundMe or the like.

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53 minutes ago, Hello World said:

Why not? There is a good chance that some deal is the only way to get the next series published without resorting to GoFundMe or the like.

Bah. He'll get a deal. I find the pessimism around here laughable. From the AmA ruined the series. To, your rather see an overdone LotR, than something new. Its a lack of vision on Amazon's behalf. What fair weather fans. You should be ashamed. But, you won't. I get the feeling around here that you guys know what Bakker should do and what he shouldn't. Instead of just seeing what the man pulls off. 

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Hmm some quick math off the top of my head 25K for an option on the series 225K if exercised, I'd try to do the first two books as one twelve episode season so you can end on the natural circumfix climax, so twelve episodes. GOT had iirc an 80 million budget for season one on ten episodes, so since this property is less valuable even though there's inflation you can say we will do it lower budget and aim at 80 million for a twelve episode order. Figure spend two million in pre production 40 million on production 36 million on post production and 1.75 million on production insurance. This season would have six locations: Demua wilderness, utemot, momemn, sumna, and generic castle city to be sacked that you can keep redressing and reuse (like GOT) to pretend they are different cities being sacked, and circumfix city.

figure two shooting units (b unit on Demua utemot, a unit on momemn sumna) and interiors in studio. Camera package is either red dragons or Alexa 65 whichever is cheaper and gives you the most latitude in post. About the same number of extras as GOT season one, no horses, and a slightly smaller main cast, there's no kids so your shooting schedule is shorter saving a lot of money. Minimize expansive wide shots or goofy camera moves through the locations. Probably 90 location days, 80 studio days. 3 editors for 16 weeks (4 weeks per episode ) and three assistants (one temp gfx focused). One editor and assistant for 6 weeks to finalize every show once graphics come back in and need to be married in. 24 days of color grading, 24 days of mixing. 

Eh yeah it could probably be done, pretty low budget for scripted. But probably would look fine in he end. 12 episodes for 80 million. Probably need an 8 million contingency so 88.

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