MLP Movie - airing October 6, 2017

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Re: MLP Movie - 2017, Hasbro Allspark, Joe Ballarini Writing

Postby Sobana (?) » Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:19 am

Must of been different views at each theater then. :pinkieshrug:

Given how there are about three million bronies in the US alone, if they can keep production cost around $5-$10 million Hasbro would walk away with a tidy little profit. :allears:
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:28 am

$5-$10 million seems really low for a film. Going off of an example of another popular children's cartoon that got a movie, the first Spongebob movie had a budget of $30 million. And that was in 2004. And, that estimate is only assuming MLP keeps a similar animation style, and doesn't change to CGI or something.
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Mon Jan 12, 2015 4:28 am

I imagine Hasbro keep this stuff pretty close to their chest, but have we ever heard anything about the costs involved in the TV show?

For example, lets imagine it costs a million bucks per episode (that's probably actually a fair bit more than it costs). From the pretty scant info I'm able to find, most modest (i.e. not HBO) live-action genre shows these days cost around two million an episode, so half that for a flash-animated show that reuses a lot of assets seems reasonably ballpark.

So, for a 1hr 20min movie with the exact same production costs of the show, they'd be set back about 4 million bucks. If we wanted to be generous and give them double that budget, we're still only at 8 million bucks. If we wanted to go absolutely nuts and give them four times the production costs as the show we're at 16 million.

The big question is what Hasbro are really trying to do with this movie. Are they making a point, trying to break into the industry with something intended to impress? Or do they just want to make some safe bucks with an economical film based on a popular IP? How much money are they willing to risk, and would there even be any point in breaking the 10 million dollar mark if they're planning to stick with the same art style? Are they even planning to stick with the same art style?

Still so many questions!
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Postby Mr. Big (?) » Mon Jan 12, 2015 7:15 am

From what I hear, a 26-episode season altogether cost around three to four million. It's actually a pretty low budget show.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Mon Jan 12, 2015 7:52 am

It seems like a lot of money to me. How much does the average cartoon cost?
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Mon Jan 12, 2015 7:54 am

Bakertoons wrote:From what I hear, a 26-episode season altogether cost around three to four million. It's actually a pretty low budget show.


Woah, I was quite a way off the mark; $150,000 per episode (and that's going with the more expensive end) seems like peanuts.

So revising my example above, that would make a TV-budgeted film cost $600k, while the version with four times the production values is still only $2.4 million. That's indie film money.

ROBOT B9 wrote:It seems like a lot of money to me. How much does the average cartoon cost?


That's a really good question. Figures on this stuff are notoriously hard to find unfortunately, and even harder to verify.
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Mon Jan 12, 2015 9:33 am

If the costs of making the film is going to be that low, then I bet it's the marketing budget that will be more than the actual film budget. :ponder:

Scary fact: the cost of marketing movies is soaring (at least, in the US primarily).

Frozen, Shrek 2, Big Hero Six, and others had an estimated budget of about $150 million. I can see the MLP movie having a $100 million budget :pinkieshrug:
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Postby Sobana (?) » Mon Jan 12, 2015 9:38 am

Laura did say she had a shoe string budget while making the show.

It we round it off it's at most $5 million for ten hours of pony. If they spend the same budget of an entire season (which seems extreme) plus any unforeseen expenses it would cost like ~$10 million. Which would make for a nice little return on the investment.
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Mon Jan 12, 2015 9:50 am

AppleCobbler44 wrote:If the costs of making the film is going to be that low, then I bet it's the marketing budget that will be more than the actual film budget. :ponder:

Scary fact: the cost of marketing movies is soaring (at least, in the US primarily).

Frozen, Shrek 2, Big Hero Six, and others had an estimated budget of about $150 million. I can see the MLP movie having a $100 million budget :pinkieshrug:


Sobana wrote:Laura did say she had a shoe string budget while making the show.

It we round it off it's at most $5 million for ten hours of pony. If they spend the same budget of an entire season (which seems extreme) plus any unforeseen expenses it would cost like ~$10 million. Which would make for a nice little return on the investment.


The really interesting thing about this project is that Hasbro have lots of different angles of approach with a basically risk-free fallback option. Given that the baseline show is so cheap to produce, they can basically pick their risk level without ever taking the quality of the film below what the show has already established. For about a tenth of the cost of an already cheap romantic comedy, they can produce a film that still looks orders of magnitude better than their TV show... and that's just the fallback option!
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Mon Jan 12, 2015 10:38 am

That's another thing. If the film has a budget of, say, 45 million dollars, then that means that the movie is probably going to be able to stretch out a lot more in terms of animation and what they can do.
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Postby Sobana (?) » Mon Jan 12, 2015 11:52 am

I think the biggest cost of the movie would be the advertising. Millions. :gotcha:
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Mon Jan 12, 2015 12:50 pm

Oh, I think Hasbro would be smart enough to set up a seperate budget for advertising and such, I meant the cost of the actual movie itself. Animation, voice acting, music- things like that.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Tue Jan 13, 2015 3:21 am

ROBOT B9 wrote:Oh, I think Hasbro would be smart enough to set up a seperate budget for advertising and such, I meant the cost of the actual movie itself. Animation, voice acting, music- things like that.


Not really, as the advertising is still money spent on the film, so a lot of times it gets rolled into one big budget for the film, and then split up into sub-factions. The only thing that would definitely be seperate is the movie's budget and marketing, and the toy's budget and marketing.
[quote="AppleCobbler44Frozen, Shrek 2, Big Hero Six, and others had an estimated budget of about $150 million. I can see the MLP movie having a $100 million budget :pinkieshrug:[/quote]

Only if it's CGI.
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Tue Jan 13, 2015 3:56 am

ShieldedDiamond wrote:Only if it's CGI.


Looking at some 2D animated films, they seem to wildly range from $11 million dollars (PPG the Movie) to $105 million dollars (Princess and the Frog). Another wild range is how Aladdin and Little Mermaid costs $28 million and $40 million respectively while Mulan costs $90 million. Heck, the Emperor's New Groove (a hilarious film I love) costs $100 million even though the animation wasn't top quality.

It seems like animated films around and after the 2000s are the ones that are affected by the 'soaring marketing costs' :pinkieshrug:

If 2D and 3D animated films costs $100 million and more, I can definitely see the movie (whether 2D or 3D) land in that range, marketing included.

Generously, maaaaaaybe about $80-90 million? :rariwhat:
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Tue Jan 13, 2015 4:14 am

Generously speaking, yeah, that'd probably be the limit, and wouldn't go higher than that.
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Tue Jan 13, 2015 4:37 am

Honestly, I'll be really amazed if the budget breaks 50 million. Hasbro tend to be a company focussed on moving product rather than making art (quite rightly, given they're in the toy business), and I just can't see them spending big, risky numbers when they could deliver a high-quality product for much, much less.

Then again, they've clearly seen which way the wind is blowing with the likes of the Transformers films; there's big, big money to be made from leveraging popular toy IPs in the entertainment business. If they're really serious about tussling with the big boys in Hollywood, maybe putting down some big bucks is the best way to do it.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Tue Jan 13, 2015 4:48 am

The other issue is, we cannot base this at all around what they're doing with Transformers and GI Joe, as they are not Allspark Pictures films, other companies have say in what happens, and merely report to Hasbro. Allspark, however, is now their thing, and they might handle it entirely differently as opposed to the past.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Tue Jan 13, 2015 7:38 am

Oh, well, in that case, I think that a large percentage of the budget will probably be for advertising. Not to mention that Hasbro will probably put out toys related to the movie- that might eat into the cost.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Tue Jan 13, 2015 2:00 pm

Toys that tie into the movie would surely pay for themselves and then some. After all, if the show weren't able to sell toys then it wouldn't be on the air anymore.
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Postby ShieldedDiamond (?) » Wed Jan 14, 2015 1:33 am

ROBOT B9 wrote:Oh, well, in that case, I think that a large percentage of the budget will probably be for advertising. Not to mention that Hasbro will probably put out toys related to the movie- that might eat into the cost.


Like I said in my post prior, Hasbro's toy division is entirely separate from their new media division. The toys would have their own budget and would not be responsible for the movie, and is responsible for its own advertisement. The movie, an entirely different budget in a different division, is meant to focus on their budget for the movie. The toyline budget and the movie budget, will not mix. Just as toy sales and ticket sales will not.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Thu Feb 26, 2015 12:23 am

So, just in case there was any lingering uncertainty about whether this movie would be about magic horses or Dougworld highschoolers...
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Sat Mar 07, 2015 5:21 pm

Well, that's enough for me to be hyped. :allears:
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Postby Mr. Big (?) » Fri Apr 17, 2015 3:11 am

Okay, so remember all those Sony emails that got leaked? And how wikileaks has a site on it?

Yeah, I found some emails about the Pony movie. They were interested in getting the directors of "Ice Age" to make it, but ultimately they decided to have DHX make it, like with the show, and that they're planning to finish the film by Feb. 2017, with release in following April.

Sony is still interested in distributing the film, though, and there were meetings about it between them and Hasbro.

There were talks about the popularity of Ponies, and yes, they mentioned bronies among them.
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Postby Wayoshi (?) » Fri Apr 17, 2015 4:39 am

So there's a Wikileaks link out there with this info?

Will be interesting to see if that April deadline holds up. I'm disappointed to hear they almost ignored DHX, though.
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Postby Bremen (?) » Fri Apr 17, 2015 5:04 am

I'm.. unsure how the board wants to handle this discussion, to be honest.

That said, I was too curious, and I went and looked; I feel bad about it, because I have nothing against Sony and condemned the hack.

If we do discuss it, though.. there's some fairly detailed discussion of the first draft of the script in some of these e-mails. Enough to definitely justify a spoiler thread, IMHO.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Fri Apr 17, 2015 5:14 am

Bremen wrote:I'm.. unsure how the board wants to handle this discussion, to be honest.

That said, I was too curious, and I went and looked; I feel bad about it, because I have nothing against Sony and condemned the hack.

If we do discuss it, though.. there's some fairly detailed discussion of the first draft of the script in some of these e-mails. Enough to definitely justify a spoiler thread, IMHO.


Not a whole lot there, other than the villain name. Granted the name infers a lot as to the scope of the film...
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Postby Bremen (?) » Fri Apr 17, 2015 5:17 am

The Doctor wrote:
Not a whole lot there, other than the villain name. Granted the name infers a lot as to the scope of the film...


Also the implication that the story ties in with the backstory of the alicorns.

That said, later e-mails say that Hasbro does a complete rewrite of the draft, so how much of the info is even relevant is up in the air.
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Postby The Doctor (?) » Fri Apr 17, 2015 5:24 am

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=10090

Made a movie spoiler thread.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Fri Apr 17, 2015 6:33 am

That's a shame that the info got leaked like that...Sony lost a lot of money and information there and they didn't deserve it. Now they might have to retool the entire thing.
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Postby Homeswirl (?) » Fri Apr 17, 2015 6:52 am

The Doctor wrote:Not a whole lot there, other than the villain name.

"Sony"? :gotcha:

(Their intentionally putting rootkit malware on their audio CDs was enough to earn them a black mark forever, though that's Sony Music, not Sony Pictures. But any major supporter of the MPAA is by no means an innocent either.)
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Postby Bremen (?) » Fri Apr 17, 2015 6:50 pm

ROBOT B9 wrote:That's a shame that the info got leaked like that...Sony lost a lot of money and information there and they didn't deserve it. Now they might have to retool the entire thing.


I hope it doesn't cause them much trouble. If it does, at least Meghan McCarthy will have the fun story of that one time when her work was sabotaged by North Korean hackers.
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Postby Applepie (?) » Tue Apr 21, 2015 7:36 am

Let's see if the trailer and the poster will be released next year.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Tue Apr 21, 2015 9:38 am

I think at most, we'll probably get a teaser for the movie. They don't really release posters or trailers until its close to the release date.
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Tue Apr 21, 2015 11:10 am

Depending on when it comes out, I think we might see a proper trailer around Christmas 2016. April or May 2017 seems like a likely release date.
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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Tue Apr 21, 2015 11:56 am

Yeah, I think May might be a good time. Depends on the competition though...any huge releases planned for that time? (With movie studios announcing their big films sometimes five years in advance, it's hard to keep up for movie buffs like me sometimes. :v: )
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Postby PaulloDEC (?) » Tue Apr 21, 2015 1:09 pm

ROBOT B9 wrote:Yeah, I think May might be a good time. Depends on the competition though...any huge releases planned for that time? (With movie studios announcing their big films sometimes five years in advance, it's hard to keep up for movie buffs like me sometimes. :v: )


When I read your post I thought "well gosh, how many big films could there possibly be releasing between April and June 2017?"

So...

• Pacific Rim 2
• Ghost in the Shell
• Guardians of the Galaxy 2
• Star Wars: Episode VIII
• Fantastic Four 2
• Toy Story 4
• Wonder Woman
• Despicable Me 3

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Postby ROBOT B9 (?) » Tue Apr 21, 2015 1:55 pm

Yeah...I'm thinking July might be a better time to release it, that seems like WAY too much stuff for it to compete with at the box office. I know it probably won't make as much as, say, the Transformers movies but it'd be nice to see it make a decent gross.
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Wed Jun 10, 2015 10:46 am

So this popped up
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Nothing major but surely they wont stick to that title right? MLP The Movie?

... how bout: My Little Pony: The First Movie :amazing: And then the sequel: My Little Pony: 2000 :amazing: :amazing:
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Postby Fizzbuzz (?) » Wed Jun 10, 2015 10:58 am

That seems like a completely reasonable title to me. Most likely they left out the "Friendship is Magic" part since otherwise the title would've been a mouthful.
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Postby Bumble-B (?) » Wed Jun 10, 2015 11:04 am

Fizzbuzz wrote:That seems like a completely reasonable title to me. Most likely they left out the "Friendship is Magic" part since otherwise the title would've been a mouthful.


I dunno... "The Movie" sounds like a late 90s early 2000s sort of thing like how "Resurrection" or "Nemesis" after the main title was a thing in the 90s :-P

Maybe My Little Pony: The Spark? :twiright:
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