31/05/2014 Talking Business with Linda Yueh

questioned on suspicion of murder. Now I'm BBC News, Talking Business

with Linda Yueh. Where is the real money being made in show business?

We hear from the stars of X`Men, a comic book turned into a movie. It

has made millions and not just from cinema tickets. Here in Singapore,

this is Talking Business with Linda Yueh.

A warm welcome to the programme. Manny is made not just from the box

office. `` money. Merchandise and distribution deals make up a

significant part of the Prophet, especially for movies made based on

comic books. So what is it about comic book characters that has such

enduring appeal? I caught up with Hugh Jackman, Wolverine, to find

out. Can we change our fate? When X`Men came out there was no comic

book genre. This was before Kat Mang `` Spiderman. I think the movies

have got over the top with spectacle and characters, but what they did

really well in the first X`Men and what has been done even better here,

is concentrating on character. Not just their superhuman abilities but

their human frailties and that is what makes people connect ultimately

to the stories and the characters, as well as great spectacle and

action and people being blue and claws coming out of their hands and

all that. Really it is about character.

There have been a lot of comic book movies that have come out. Is it

because of something that connects even adults to children, do you

think? Not all of them are entirely character driven. I have seen it

appeal to people of all ages, not just comic book fans either. X`Men

has always had classic themes. It was originally based on Martin

Luther King and Malcolm X and it is about acceptance and tolerance and

redemption, second chances. Really great themes. I am proud to be part

of a movie that is, yes, a summer popcorn blockbuster movie but that

actually have something to say. My son saw this when he was 14 and he

saw the sentinels in the whole thing and he asked if it was about climate

change. I said what do you mean? The idea we might miss the moment and it

will be too late in history and 60 years down the track we will say, if

only we could have gone back to this moment. I had not thought of that

but I love being in a movie that even prompts 14`year`olds to think

more. You have played this character for over a decade. What makes you

keep coming back to this same character? I really love this

character. What about the work`out regime? That is hard and getting

harder by the year! And I am really competitive with myself and tough on

myself. He has got to look better and I take the physicality of him

very seriously because he is an animalistic character. I want to

portray that. I don't want people to think that Wolverine hit the gym. I

want people to think of his ferocity, that he is animalistic.

That is part of his DNA, I think. I complain about it all the time. My

wife doesn't listen to me any more. She used to say poor thing and now

she kicks me out of bed. You love it, get out of here! For all his

toughness, the dirty Harry, the hand Solo, mad Max, there is a lot

underneath, pain and regret. 200 years old. There is a hell of a lot

to find in him and in this movie it is a completely different side of

him. He has TB the pacifier and the diplomat and he is the one doing the

recruiting not being recruited. `` he has to be the pacifier. When you

cast you had not done a big movie franchise. I had not done a big

movie, period. My first American movie, yes. In that sense, do you

think it is important to think about franchises for actors like you and

the associated merchandising and licensing. There is quite a lot that

goes around the franchises. Have you found as you have entered this path

that it is more important to think about checking your figurine, making

sure you have licensing and parts of that covered? It is not important.

It is probably smart to do that and be aware of it. Every movie that

comes out, people say it is a franchise movie, we plan three.

Everybody wants that. Audiences really like familiarity and the

stories and characters and they want to see them again, which makes

sense. It has probably always been that way. Even Shakespeare. Henry

IV, parts one and to. It is not a new idea. You have to keep on

reinventing the characters and finding different sides to them but

the business has changed a lot. 15 years ago great movies were made and

they did not often think about doing another one. Now any good movie is

about how to spin it off, even if it doesn't deserve or warrant it

really. All the merchandising, I have made some mistakes. I don't

want to say who came in, but someone came into my trailer on the first

X`Men and asked me to say a few lines and they had a little

microphone and a page of lines. Things like, this kit will take you

down. I am going to slice you in half. I read them out and a year

later there was a bunch of toys with my voice in them. That would not

happen now. Now a lawyer would step in and all of that. At the end of

the day, I say it is not important because it doesn't make your career.

It can certainly help, it can give you some security, particularly

internationally. But if you focus too much on that, you get away from

why we all got into this in the first place, you know? Playing

characters, telling great stories. If you become a person that does not

really love storytelling and does not have something to say, you will

probably have a short career anyway. You mentioned your kids. Who is

their favourite X`Men character? My son's favourite is the one from the

second X`Men who vamps. I love being here but I would not mind being able

to pick up my son or daughter just like that. My daughter particularly

loves Quiksilver in this movie, who I think will become a big favourite

for many people. I think it is one of the best movie scenes that I have

seen in a long time. Not watering? If it is, they would not tell me. ``

not Wolverine. You know kids, they will not hand it over to their dad

that quickly! Successful franchises on TV also make money from

merchandising and licensing. I caught up with Peter, the start of

the small and big screen, in Game Of Thrones and X`Men, to asking whether

the audience is different for TV versus the movies. Good afternoon,

everyone. Hello and thank you for coming. TV has really advanced, at

least in America, in the last few years. For the most part because it

has attracted great writers. They have realised that TV has become a

medium where they have more and more creative control. That shows in the

material, the end product. How important is it for actors to be

part of big franchises these days? That depends on the franchise. They

are not all of this quality. I think we are just big kids. It is so much

fun to play dress up and this is the ultimate chance to do something like

this and the make up and all of it. It is the movie that when you are

kit you wait for the summertime, not just because you are out of school.

`` when you are child. Star Wars was life changing as a child. Hopefully

with films like this we can come close to doing that. It is not just

children. It is also adults. Sure. This is darker. A much darker theme.

What is the enduring appeal of comedy book and fantasy characters?

At some point in everyone's life they have felt like an outsider, or

to varying degrees just misunderstood, ashamed of certain

aspects of themselves, whether they be positive or negative, and I think

the superheroes, these characters here, they just represent that. To

the extreme, obviously, but they speak to that. I think that is a

pretty universal thing. When you are looking at these

movies, choosing these movies, how important is it for the franchise to

negotiate the merchandising and licensing as well for what you do? I

have a guy who is amazing who does all that stuff for me. That is

extra. That is padding around the core of the reason why I do these

things. It is important these days. It is and there are people who are

smart and know how to do it and profit from it but one thing at the

time for me! This is the ultimate question. Do you have a final check

on any likeness of you that goes out from the franchises? Yes. They do

allow us to look at weird stalls and plastic figurines. A lot has been

made of the characters on Game Of Thrones and my friends have a lot of

fun emailing me the newest caricatures and everything, whether

it is a child's toy. I don't know why the Game Of Thrones they are

making figurines for children because I don't know what child is

watching this. Mine has a scar on its face but they do. They run it by

us. There is a new enemy out there, you

will need a new weapon for this war. So what is the money being made from

merchandising? Money from TV and video games generated $50 billion

from retail sales in 20 T 13. That means millions in royalty payments

alone. Manga is a $6 billion a year global industry. It is not just

figurines, sales of licensed product hit 100 million last year. The

biggest licensed served is Disney which accounts for 80% of the market

with its ownership of Marvel and the Star Wars movies. Warner Brothers is

the next biggest. For some, film franchises, merchandising is a

greater revenue generator than ticket sales. Joining me to discuss

the business end of movies are the founder of the production 's green

will stop ``. And a director from Hong Kong. Welcome to both of you.

Calvin, let me start with you. Do you have to have a big franchise in

order to make money from movies, real money, we are talking the

ability to license. You are making an independent film. I do agree with

you broadly that the bigger the movie, the bigger its advertising

budget and that is why you see franchises like the X`Men,

Twilight. These type of films are those which generally make a lot of

money. It takes money to make money and advertising is expensive. But I

do think there is still a niche in the market for smaller films. I

don't think every movie go out there is a 12`year`old. So I think as long

as you can keep your costs within reason and more importantly, if you

have a very good script, I still think there is a place for such

films in the business place. Do you agree? Your film was critically

acclaimed. It is not a big franchise with action figures attached to it.

In York business mix, how many of those would you do and how many

franchise movies would you do? It is a hit in this affair. You do

something like it because as Kelvin said, there is something in your

heart you want to write about and how the story. But how well the

audience will receive it is hard to say. I do not think we are making

very much money. It is great that we won a lot of prizes and it gives a

lot of people the reputation to carry on, but in terms of monetary

return, not that much. I just want to jump in. While it is true the big

films make money, it is also true that big films lose a lot of money

as well. I think we have been talking about the success stories.

For everyone hit that Hollywood makes, I think easily there are nine

or ten that fail. I think looking at just budget size, how star`studded

it is, is only part of the equation. At the end of the day, I think a

movie still has to capture the audience imaginations with things

like originality and quality. I want to move into TV. These days it is

very multimedia. Cinema is not the only entertainment form. As a

producer, would you have to move more towards multimedia platforms in

the future, whether it is adapting something for TV or even online.

Some very successful TV series are just online like House of Cards. As

a producer you have to go for many channels. That is not just have to

be multimedia or TV. One channel I have been hoping to break into is

the airline channel. Look at some numbers. Singapore airlines carries

18 to 20 million passengers a year. When you sit in a plane you have

nowhere to go. And what do you do? You watch movies. So just think some

numbers. 18 million passengers a year, half of them watch movies.

They watch an average of two movies. So let's lay Singapore airlines

every year have 20 million moviegoers. You can make a lot of

money than having your movie distributed in the normal cinema

chain. That is a new way of looking at it. Kelvin, is that your future,

making movies for say airlines or are you still more of a traditional

cinema type of film maker? I think as a film`maker I welcome every

additional channel there is for revenue. But I do think we are going

through a change right now. It used to be that the traditional multiplex

cinemas are where most of the profits are made. But I think today

with Internet and the way that people are expecting their

entertainment to be streamed to them, I think that avenue, there is

a lot more to be explored and right now, I do not think there is a very

good way of monetising it yet, but I think in the coming years we are

going to see a lot of innovations in that respect and hopefully, that

will claw back a lot more lost revenues for film`makers. Do you

agree, do think that is the future? Let's put it this way. Calvin, you

and artist. You want to do something close to your own heart. When you

talk about making money, I think that is a very different

perspective. You can make a lot of money now in movies, if you're

willing to put in some kind of advertising. Product placement

advertising in a subtle way, as long as there is enough advertisers to

help you go on, the box office really doesn't matter very much. If

you know that the movie is going to be watched by 100 million people,

can you imagine that if you promise an advertiser, I have 100 million

items, I do not need to collect money from tickets. If that affects

the way you want to tell the story, that affects art, that is quite a

different thing. But for the movie industry as a whole, especially for

the Hollywood movie, they are all moving towards mass consumption,

which means a lot of advertising, subtle or not subtle. Product

placement in your movies, does that feel a little like you are selling

out your artistic soul? Not at all. If you're making bread personal

film, I think that could be a little intrusive but you're making

something like X`Men or Mission Impossible, I think sports cars get

it very well. It depends on what you are doing. Let me ask you about TV.

You mention monetising different streams. How does TV fit in? There

have been some pretty big franchises on TV and it is cheaper to make. TV

is very exciting right now. In America, if you look at the TV

industry compared to the film industry, the TV industry,

particular cable, is very healthy right now in America. One,

television production is a lot cheaper than film production,

therefore, in terms of content and ideas, the storytellers take more

risk and as a result, find more audiences. The other reason why I

think television is very healthy compared to the film business in our

car, is because cable TV enjoys a ratings system that is a lot freer

than the ratings system museums and are. As a result, Hollywood studios

tend to make films that appeal to eight`year`olds. But if we look at

the big hits on cable TV like a macro game of Thrones or Homeland,

the ratings are a lot looser so they can tackle a subject matter that is

more controversial. If you look at the success of those television

productions, it is break clear there is a demand for that because the

viewership numbers are incredible. What do you think? I would like to

bring in a termite borrowed from some Chinese friends of mine. They

are talking about a fragmented time economy. What that means is your

time is basically fragmented now today by e`mails, SMS, whatever. You

do not really have the time to do something that takes a long time.

For example, to watch a movie now with my wife, we have to plan, do be

bringing dinner, do we want to change our programme? In the old

days you just used to watch a movie, you do not think twice. Now there

are so much interruption. So in response, what most people do is

they will go home, watch download which you don't pay, or they watch

something fit into their busy schedule which is why YouTube is so

popular because you can watch for three minutes and walk away. So TV

is obviously more suited to the fragmented time economy than movies

because it is shorter. But even then, they are getting to the point

where people do not want to watch 20 or 30 episode TV, they want to watch

12 episode TV. Anything that requires a long time commitment,

they do not want to do it. TV is good but again, the boundaries are

getting smaller. Very interesting. Thank you both very much indeed.

Movies make money, not just by selling cinematic bits. It is

particularly the case for movies linked to the comic book market.

Products and figures are bigger source of profits than the box

office, but to sell the goods, they still need to get all of us into the

cinema. That is all we have time for. Check out our website and me on

Twitter. Join me for more Talking Business next time with me, Linda

Yueh. Hello. There are changes on the way

for some of us tomorrow where we have the best of the Sun tried to

the north and west of the UK, there will be more cloud