More movies, but not in theaters.
 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...aa17c3ea2aa2a1

<embed style="width: 596px; height: 24px;" class="sIFR-flash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" sifr="true" bgcolor="#ffffff" wmode="opaque" flashvars="txt=WWE will loosen grip on theatricals&underline=true&textcolor=#000&hovercolor=#d8182a&linkcolor=#000&w=596&h=24" quality="best" src="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/swf/helvetica_thr5.swf" height="24" width="596">WWE will loosen grip on theatricals

By Georg Szalai
May 4, 2007
NEW YORK -- On the heels of weaker-than-hoped boxoffice revenue for its third feature, "The Condemned," World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. said Thursday that it will focus on direct-to-video releases over the near-term.

During the sports entertainment powerhouse's first-quarter earnings call, CEO Linda McMahon said that while the WWE film team will continue to evaluate all sorts of scripts, no theatrical features are planned.

"We are now able to move more into direct-to-video production, and that will be the next focus," said, adding the company is looking at a couple of such scripts.

Despite the change in focus, McMahon noted that the WWE is in talks with a major studio on a potential deal for direct-to-video or theatrical distribution on a first-look basis.

The CEO said she still feels WWE's film strategy is "sound," adding its first three theatrical releases were important to get a foot into Hollywood and expand the visibility of the firm's brand beyond its traditional fan base.

McMahon also predicted that all three movies will "make money or at worst break even."

"Condemned," starring "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, has grossed about $4.4 million since its release on Friday, which is "below our aspirations for the film," she said. "We clearly were disappointed with the first weekend." The film was distributed by Lionsgate.

McMahon said WWE is looking at the reasons for the weaker-than-expected performance, with the movie's R rating being one potential factor. She emphasized, though, that her company expects "Condemned" to perform well in the home video market.

The other WWE big-screen efforts were 2006 releases "See No Evil," starring the WWE's Kane, which grossed $15 million and was also distributed by Lionsgate, and Fox release "The Marine," which starred John Cena and took in $18.8 million.

McMahon said that the April 1 WrestleMania 23, WWE's latest edition of its biggest annual pay-per-view event, drew about 1.2 million PPV buys based on preliminary estimates by cable and satellite operators. That would be a WWE record and a 15% increase over WrestleMania buy rates of the past three years, the CEO said.

WWE on Thursday reported higher first-quarter earnings, driven by revenue gains in all business segments.

The firm posted a profit of $15.1 million, up from $9.5 million in the year-ago period. Revenue rose to $107.4 million from $95.1 million, exceeding Wall Street estimates.

WWE shares jumped more than 8% during Thursday trading to approach their 52-week high of $18.54

Meh.

Disappointing...

The question is, will Hunter job to Blockbuster?

Nick Mondo going over HHH?

No one tell Sadistic

So wait.

Kane, Cena and Austin all get theatre bombs - yet the Prodigal Son Himself - Treeplay Ah-chay goes straight to DVD? I never saw that one coming....

Meh, H was in Blade 3. He's done it.

(Blade 3 was the only bad Blade.)

I love all the Blade movies but in the same way people like William Hung... C'mon none of them were all that good.

Bull. Blade 2 was spectacular.

It was if you watched it on mute.

Nah. I love Hong Kong action flicks, so clever dialog is a necessity. That movie rocked.

Kane and Cena weren't exactly bombs.

They did okay for themselves. While not giants, their movies hardly bombed.

Though it is kind of ironic.

I bet Trips wished he had taken time off earlier. You know, let go of the belt back when the project was first announced.

Though he wouldn't look like Yosemite Sam....Which would probably hurt sales.

I liked the first two Blade movies just fine :y:

I really thought "The Condemned" would do better than previous two releases, it honestly just looked like the best movie of the three. Now, I havent seen any of them but just my initial perspective of them from trailers and such, it actually looked like it could have come out of any studio not just some crap the WWE threw together to make an extra buck.

That's my fault.

I should've been more clear on my use of bomb.

I didn't just mean financially wise, I meant the quality of the movie. See No Evil and Marine were crappy quality wise, and haven't seen Condemned yet, but we're seeing it's crappy financially wise.

My bad :y:

I have to agree with you.

I honestly expected this to be WWE Films' "breakout" movie, with it doing a great deal better. It seemed to me, like you said, this was the only one that actually looked like a real movie; not something that goes straight to DVD or is an independent film.

Like you, I haven't seen it, but the previews alone looked a lot better than the previous 2 WWE Films releases. I thought for sure with the qualities we discussed, plus the publicity for it and Austin being involved that it would've done really well.

Guess I thought wrong. :-\

One problem is that they barely marketed Austin outside of Raw. Now, you consider that ratings are down, so fewer people are watching Raw, you consider how poor the advertising was for the movie, you consider everything WWE did wrong and this movie probably was doomed to fail regardless of merit.

Assuming Austin's popularity is still all that, they failed to market it. The Marine got better marketing.

Yeh, very true. It was plastered all over the place, not just on WWE programming. I don't think I've seen many ads for The Condemned outside of WWE TV.

The amount of marketing they do for their movies during WWE programming drives me fucking nuts. I've yet to see a WWE film simply cause I saw the whole damn thing in the 943056486 previews and trailers I saw during RAW

I think they are giving up way to easily here, they can't expect to get a good rep over night. I wish they would try two or three more movies and see how that goes. Or maybe try to make a good movie, that would work too.

Why would you want to make direct to video movies?

Meh, it still works out in Triple H's favor to go direct-to-video. They're seeing that they're not getting great ticket sales in the theaters, so by Triple H's movie not even premiering on the bigscreen, as long as DVD sales are up, it doesn't look like any objectives were failed on the project.

Yeah, I know that could be construed as a "conspiracy theory", but I was just trying to offer another way to look at the whole "irony" of Triple H's movie seemingly not going big screen.

NO!

- An Abstinence film starring Bobby Lashley. Bobby plays a young girl faced with growing pressure by her male schoolmates to have sexual intercourse.

Featuring :

Bobby Lashley as Lindsay - the young girl.
Batista as Bathturd, the football player jock that tries to force her to have sex.
Finlay as the girl's wise father.
Triple H as Bathturd's edgy and controversial father.

WWE Will Loosen It's Grip on Wrestling

:shifty:

No, it's technically true, and might even get spun that way retroactively.

WWE Films presents....

CAKES ON A PLANE

Starring Mark Henry.

Genius right there, and you damn well know it.

Guest starring Sabu....

and Joey Mercury :shifty:

Even better!

CM Punk is...sXe on a Plane.

Can you handle the anaconda?

Or will you...

Go...

To...

Sllleeeeeeeeeeeep?!!!

That was good. :lol:

Especially with how shitty the source material was.