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Post by Megalon on Oct 23, 2020 13:09:12 GMT -5
The recent post about new shorts by Joel, Josh, and Bill got me thinking... What is this sub-forum's purpose now that the Netflix reboot is cancelled? Originally this sub-forum was dedicated to the Kickstarter and the new seasons, but the fact that the recent shorts news was posted here instead of, say, the General sub-forum (where I think it would more suitable) makes me think that people see General as the place to go for discussion about the original MST3k episodes and Relaunch as the place to discuss any new content, whether it relates to the relaunch or not.
So, what do you all think? Is this sub-forum specifically about the Kickstarter/Relaunch, or is it about any new MST3k-related content?
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Post by jadenh on Oct 23, 2020 14:02:38 GMT -5
I would say this is more for any new MST3K content. There's supposed to be another Kickstarter coming up, right? So, I imagine news about that would go here and not anywhere else. I wouldn't want an entire section just to die out. So, I think it just makes sense for this to be the general new MST3K board.
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Post by mylungswereaching on Oct 23, 2020 20:28:30 GMT -5
When you just have one big sub forum things tend to get buried. If you don't log in for a day or two and the most recent comment is in a thread that's been around for weeks it easy to just skip that thread.
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Post by majorjoe23 on Oct 24, 2020 10:01:22 GMT -5
I thought when this sub forum was created that there was talk of it all being folded into general once things weren't so "new" anymore. But maybe I'm misremembering.
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Post by BoB3K on Oct 24, 2020 13:39:31 GMT -5
What is this sub-forum's purpose now that the Netflix reboot is cancelled? Ahem. It was not a NetFlix show. This forum started for the kickstarter. The kickstarter was for new MST3K. Joel overspent the money and had to go beg for more from some horrible ass streaming service, which then claimed it as their own 'original show' and dubbed it the 'Reboot." But those are old, sad details. I think jadenh said it the simplest-- I would say this is more for any new MST3K content.
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Post by majorjoe23 on Oct 24, 2020 17:38:36 GMT -5
I swear you find the weirdest things to latch onto. The show had been picked up by Netflix before filming began. It’s not like Joel filmed like 90% of the series, then had to go looking for a home to finish it.
The show was always looking for a permanent home, and at the time Netflix was the biggest (and seemingly best) game in town.
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Post by BoB3K on Oct 25, 2020 11:42:48 GMT -5
It’s not like Joel filmed like 90% of the series, then had to go looking for a home to finish it. No, I'm actually pretty sure that is exactly how it happened. They began production with kickstarter money. Go read the kickstarter and news surrounding it. It was to 100% fund and create the new season, with full plans for blu-ray release and such, and then it was a parallel effort to get the show on a channel somewhere to get it back out into the world and hopefully rolling with more seasons. Not only did Joel run out of money and have to use NetFlix' money to finish production, it could very easily be argued that it is Netflix that ran the new show into the ground with all the stupidity that was forced into season 12 -- bad movie choices, STOOPID binge themes, show format changes, lame 6 episode order, etc. ALL of that was because it was on NetFlix. And, no, I don't think it's a 'weird thing to latch onto'. I, among 1000s of other MSTies paid Joel real money (I gave him a thousand bucks) to get MST3K back, and Netflix comes along and claims it as a 'NetFlix original' and then has a large hand in screwing it up. F*CK NetFlix. There is NO reason why they even had to be involved. Joel could have fully produced Season 11 the with 5 Million or something dollars he got from kickstarter, got it out to the backers, got it selling as a DVD or stream or something, and then used the profits to fund Season 12, and so on. Oh, and I HATE 'binge-watching'. And I hate Netflix. (full dislcosure, I have netflix, and watch some of the shows on it like mst3k, the marvel stuff, the witcher (oh look most of that has been canceled, and I should cancel netflix, but my family still watches some shows on it)).
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Post by mylungswereaching on Oct 25, 2020 13:25:20 GMT -5
It’s not like Joel filmed like 90% of the series, then had to go looking for a home to finish it. No, I'm actually pretty sure that is exactly how it happened. They began production with kickstarter money. Go read the kickstarter and news surrounding it. It was to 100% fund and create the new season, with full plans for blu-ray release and such, and then it was a parallel effort to get the show on a channel somewhere to get it back out into the world and hopefully rolling with more seasons. Not only did Joel run out of money and have to use NetFlix' money to finish production, it could very easily be argued that it is Netflix that ran the new show into the ground with all the stupidity that was forced into season 12 -- bad movie choices, STOOPID binge themes, show format changes, lame 6 episode order, etc. ALL of that was because it was on NetFlix. And, no, I don't think it's a 'weird thing to latch onto'. I, among 1000s of other MSTies paid Joel real money (I gave him a thousand bucks) to get MST3K back, and Netflix comes along and claims it as a 'NetFlix original' and then has a large hand in screwing it up. F*CK NetFlix. There is NO reason why they even had to be involved. Joel could have fully produced Season 11 the with 5 Million or something dollars he got from kickstarter, got it out to the backers, got it selling as a DVD or stream or something, and then used the profits to fund Season 12, and so on. Oh, and I HATE 'binge-watching'. And I hate Netflix. (full dislcosure, I have netflix, and watch some of the shows on it like mst3k, the marvel stuff, the witcher (oh look most of that has been canceled, and I should cancel netflix, but my family still watches some shows on it)). Netflix is just another network. They have a way of doing things and if you want to put a show on the network you have to fit in. It doesn't matter what network they went to. They would have to live by some sorts of rules. The only way to have complete control is to put out their own DVD's and set up their own streaming service where they set the rules. But I doubt that they could make enough money to keep it going with their own service with only one show. Joel's problem was that he overspent. He needed more money than people were willing to spend. No matter what way he went people would complain. He could have done gone the Star Trek the Next Generation route and went to a conventional channel with some sort of revenue sharing deal. Then use the money he got to make a new episode every few months. It also would mean that the show would be on a network with commercials which many people hate. But that would mean he would need to be frugal with his money like the old MST3k was. But he didn't want that. He wanted to do everything his way. He didn't want to have to think about things like cost. That was Jim Mallon's job on the old show but no one likes Jim and everyone liked Joel.
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Post by majorjoe23 on Oct 25, 2020 19:52:41 GMT -5
No, I'm actually pretty sure that is exactly how it happened. They began production with kickstarter money. Go read the kickstarter and news surrounding it. It was to 100% fund and create the new season, with full plans for blu-ray release and such, and then it was a parallel effort to get the show on a channel somewhere to get it back out into the world and hopefully rolling with more seasons. Not only did Joel run out of money and have to use NetFlix' money to finish production, it could very easily be argued that it is Netflix that ran the new show into the ground with all the stupidity that was forced into season 12 -- bad movie choices, STOOPID binge themes, show format changes, lame 6 episode order, etc. ALL of that was because it was on NetFlix. And, no, I don't think it's a 'weird thing to latch onto'. I, among 1000s of other MSTies paid Joel real money (I gave him a thousand bucks) to get MST3K back, and Netflix comes along and claims it as a 'NetFlix original' and then has a large hand in screwing it up. F*CK NetFlix. There is NO reason why they even had to be involved. Joel could have fully produced Season 11 the with 5 Million or something dollars he got from kickstarter, got it out to the backers, got it selling as a DVD or stream or something, and then used the profits to fund Season 12, and so on. Oh, and I HATE 'binge-watching'. And I hate Netflix. (full dislcosure, I have netflix, and watch some of the shows on it like mst3k, the marvel stuff, the witcher (oh look most of that has been canceled, and I should cancel netflix, but my family still watches some shows on it)). The Netflix deal was announced in July of 2016 at SDCC. Filming didn't even start until September of 2016. Joel has said they got about $100,000 per episode from Netflix for The Return. Writing started in very early 2016. You think Joel blew through $6 million in six months? (It's rhetorical, I know you do. I also don't think you're capable of being rational about the return of MST3K at this point). Anything that shows up first on Netflix is a Netflix Original. The new episodes of Arrested Development were Netflix originals, despite it started out on Fox. In England, Breaking Bad was labeled as a Netflix original, because no one was airing it in the UK. It's a way for them to market their shows. Some people watch a show BECAUSE it's a Netflix original. If calling it a Netflix original get a few more eyes on it, that's a small price, in my opinion. As for just producing it independently and letting DVD sales support it, that seems like a great way to guarantee a single season. (Essentially) No one buys DVDs anymore. Shout tried their hand at a straight-to-DVD riffing program in the DVDs-Are-Awesome 2000s with The Film Crew. The fact that there were only four and the DVDs were quickly remaindered means Shout was unlikely to consider that as a viable return on their new purchase. You spent $1000 on this, I can understand how that would skew your expectations. I spent about $400 and was happy. Maybe the cost to return was just too high for you.
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Post by comedyc on Oct 25, 2020 20:38:39 GMT -5
It's like how I feel when I read someone refer to KTMA as public access instead of UHF. Huge difference. Public Access is free to do, or some places make you pay to do it. It's not professional. KTMA was a UHF station that paid it's employees, hence a professional job.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2020 0:04:28 GMT -5
Regarding Film Crew, didn't Jim Mallon play a part in shutting that down or is that just a MSTie urban legend?
I think MST3K could have succeeded on DVD/Blu-ray but the Netflix partnership guaranteed a bigger audience. Whether or not that's a good thing depends on who you ask. But I also think we were going to get the same season 11 we ultimately got regardless of its platform.
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Post by majorjoe23 on Oct 26, 2020 6:38:25 GMT -5
Film Crew was originally produced by Rhino, which was putting out the MST3K DVDs at the time. The story is that Mallon told Rhino that if they put out Film Crew, he would take MST3K elsewhere. So they sold Film Crew to Shout and Bob Rhino was redubbed as Bob Honcho.
Not long after, Mallon moved MST3K to Shout anyway.
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Post by Diet Kolos on Oct 26, 2020 12:53:06 GMT -5
Per my understanding, Joel Just massively massively over-promised and overspent on season 11's production. It was almost a victim of its own success. It became pretty evident towards the end of the kickstarter that the amount of stretch goals and cameos and background production assists they were getting from high profile names were starting to pile on pretty heavily, hence the livestream fundraiser they had after the kickstarter was over that raised an extra few hundred thousand dollars, which I assume they did because they realized they were not going to make their budget with all the things that were promised. But instead of using that extra post-Kickstarter money to fill in their budget gap they decided to make a 13th and 14th episode. So now they have to use the money that they were assuming they were going to get from a streaming service for the right to air the show, and then throw THAT towards production also. So now there's ZERO profit at all. All your money is tied up in cameos and concept art and Lin Manuel Miranda songs.
So you get cutbacks on stuff like studio time and set design and editing and the resulting product is a rushed mess.
In order to make ANY money, they have to do live touring, which is expensive anyways and hope the next season order is enough to cover production. It isn't, of course, so you have to do MORE fundraising and ANOTHER tour and before you know it, the whole thing is a money pit for everyone involved.
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Post by monkeypretzel on Oct 26, 2020 15:23:52 GMT -5
"You think Joel blew through $6 million in six months?"
That is EXACTLY what happened. But it was closer to four million that was available for production, once the Kickstarter and reward costs were subtracted. Joel ran out of money, and he admitted he needed the Netflix licensing fee to stay out of debt in a July 2017 interview. Now, whether Joel ran out of funds because he underestimated production costs or because he overspent on pre-production (all those pretty pictures in the coffee table book cost a pretty penny) or for some other reason is a question we're likely to never get answered.
I used to be a mod for the former Revival League Group on Facebook, and in January 2017 people were making plans for attending the three premieres in NY, Chicago, and LA. Greg Tally shared an email with us that he had gotten from Elliot Kalan, after Greg had asked him if everyone was going to be at all three premieres. Elliot said there wasn't enough money to have everyone attend every premiere, which is why Rebecca and Tim were only at the Chicago premiere, and Felicia only at the LA one, etc. That was a big red flag for me that money was much tighter than Joel had let on, which he confirmed later that year in the interview I mention above. I don't think he's ever recovered financially from going over budget on both Netflix seasons; the cost cutting on the 2018 and 2019 live tours was plainly evident.
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Post by majorjoe23 on Oct 26, 2020 20:38:46 GMT -5
I must have missed the Lin Manuel Miranda song. He expressed interest in doing a song for season 12 on Twitter, but it never happened. Are you thinking of Robert Lopez? This discussion is full of half correct info. The livestream fundraiser happened while the Kickstarter was still happening, not after it finished. Season 12 did have the pledge drive thing, is that what you’re thinking of?
I would be shocked if the cameos were anything other than favors done at scale (around $1,200). No one was getting 50 grand for an hour of Green screen work. Similarly, some PA snapping pics on a DSLR wasn’t going to break the bank (I haven’t looked at the credits, did Joel rope in Annie Leibovitz to shoot the behind the scenes pics?)
I’m not going to say huge parts of this weren’t a mess. But so is Seemingly every discussion about what people think the problem was.
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