I just read two issues of Entertainment Weekly that looked at movie dealings and the summer box office. One looked at the way studios are negotiating with the stars and talent of the films. It mentions how studios are trying to make contract deals giving the stars and talent a piece of the gross. This is supposedly more feasible to do then to give in the money up front before a movie begins filming (as it counts on the budget costs). Disney dumped Russell Crowe and Ron Howard on “The Alamo” (combined for $37 mil). The article ends with a mention of how Columbia did a complicated back end deal with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence for Bad Boys 2. Then mentions under notion that MIB 3 would be like this as well for a deal even if that film was a safe bet to make. This is what they did on MIB II for Smith and Lee Jones, Barry Sonnenfeld and Steven Spielberg. Supposedly they took in at least $100 mil combined of the gross of MIB II. This figure was denied by Columbia Pictures.
But then the other issue had the summer box office and mentioned that MIB II should've done better. As the film supposedly costed (through IMDB site and EW) $97-$140 mil and is at least going to rake in $200 mil. The higher cost is from EW and I can only think they're including the marketing costs. Now they think MIB 3 isn't a sure thing anymore.
I can't help but wonder if this is going to be the same thing if GB3 ever comes. Will the talent and its stars take too much of GB3's possible box office gross and make the film financially feasible? I mean this pretty much happened on GB2 as well.
Dan Ackroyd's last quote on GB3 is still from May 2001 and said Columbia was all for GB3 but the actors themselves were the problem. Not like they are huge box office draws anymore . Now if his earlier quote of the $120 mil budget is true, then compare to how MIB 2 grossed and see where I'm heading with this analysis. Would GB3 be able to make a good profit once that budget and the marketing costs came around? I mean can you believe how bad Colmubia lost out on Stuart Little 2? Costed $120 mil and only made $65 mil.
What do you all think?

Your post if very interesting, it makes some excellent points as far as sony and how they are making their money. Can you give us a link to this website?

Brandon

There aren't really any links to this info. It was in EW magazine. I tried to get a link but the same article from EW on their website didn't go that far as the printed one did.
Here is that link:
http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,338083~7~~,00.html
The summer box office was only mentioned in the other issue not the site. My info is from Entertainment Weekly issue's #668/669 (Aug 23/30, 2002) and# 670 (Sept. 6, 2002).
Here is a link about GB3 from one of my previous thread posts:
http://www.ghostbusters.net/disscussion/ghn/3/33192/
Here is a link that has all of the past news on GB3:
http://www.corona.bc.ca/films/filmlistingsFramed.html
Go to stages of development and go to development hell and find GB3. This is my reference material when I mention older info.
Hope this helps.

Well I hope Sony and COlumbia could take just one more chance and bet on a GB3 being a super blockbuster hit. You never know….it might happen one of these days.