Once again, the value of a strong story concept
Straight from the horse’s mouth, the horse in this case being a high ranking studio executive talking about the big opening weekend ($28.1M) of Horrible Bosses:
“It’s a concept we can all relate too. We’ve all heard about the mythical boss from hell, even if we’ve never had one,” Warner Bros. executive vice president of domestic distribution Jeff Goldstein said.
Boom. You hear the story concept, you get it. That makes marketing a movie easy, echoed in this interview I did with a studio marketing executive:
Q: If Movie A had an A-list star and Movie B had an incredible story concept, which would you prefer to take on for a marketing campaign?
A: I would absolutely rather work on a film with an incredible story concept than one with an A-list star in it. Like I said before, films with great storylines speak for themselves. When we see a film that we truly enjoy, it makes us want to work that much harder for it, because we REALLY believe in it.
More about Horrible Bosses:
Directed by Seth Gordon, Horrible Bosses features an all-star ensemble cast led by Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. The storyline revolves around three employees who plot to kill their respective bosses.
Brett Ratner’s company Rat Entertainment produced Horrible Bosses, which appealed heavily to moviegoers between the ages of 18 and 24. Males made up 51% of the audience, and gave the pic an A- CinemaScore. Females gave it a B+. All told 64% of those buying tickets were over the age of 25.
Horrible Bosses, costing a modest $37 million to produce, played well across the U.S., including in small markets.
This is precisely the type of comedy Hollywood is interested in making nowadays: Budgets no higher than $40M, edgy story elements, and a strong universally identifiable high concept.
For more of the article, go here.
Now check out this feature on Brett Ratner, one of the producers of Horrible Bosses:
“In this day and age, you need a lot of patience if you are in the movie business,” Ratner told The Hollywood Reporter Sunday morning.
“But I think it’s been well worth the wait. From the beginning, I knew it was a great concept,” Ratner said. “I was even toying with the idea of directing it, but then Tower Heist came together.”
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Asked whether there’s a sequel in the offing, Ratner joked that the possibilities are endless, throwing out such titles as Horrible Wives and Horrible Children.
It is hard to get a movie produced. As this article indicates, it took six years for them to make Horrible Bosses. What keeps a project going that whole time? One major element: If the people involved know it to be a strong story concept. They can always come back to that, even when things turn south. Because movies with great concepts have the best chance of succeeding at the box office. And sometimes, that’s enough to keep a project alive. Yet another reason to make sure you are writing a script with a great story concept.
For more of the article with Ratner, go here.
Takeaway: Before you commit to writing a spec script, make sure you are working with a strong story concept.
For an interview with three of the movie’s stars Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, Jason Bateman, go here.
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