Jas Personal Blog
Update
Marvel: Comics to money spinners
Dec 12th
Today when the discussion on the filming of the scene or the characterization of the lead hero of the Marvel Comic hero in a Hollywood gets stuck between the director and Avi Arad,, then Arad calls the final shot. Two reasons for that -
- He is Avi Arad, ex chief executive of Marvel Entertainment’s Marvel Studios unit.
- He is the one who got Marvel from bankruptcy to million dollar revenues and introduced licensing and movies to it.
In 1998 toy executive Isaac Perlmutter bought bankrupt Marvel and put Arad in charge of getting Hollywood to base blockbuster films on its characters. The results speak for themselves: Under Arad, the first seven Marvel-based films – from the low-budget vampire-hunting epic Blade to the first Spider-Man and X-Men movies – each was a hit No. 1 at the box office. All told, the 12 Marvel-character films made during Arad’s tenure at Marvel have grossed $3.6 billion+ worldwide. Profit has catapulted in the past decade, revenue has surged, and Marvel’s stock, as low as $3 per share at the time of the 1998 acquisition, trades at about $54 when finally Disney bought it over.
Hulk, Iron Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Captain America and Blade are few of the 5000 odd characters of Marvel Comics which have made a rage with the kids and were selected to be made into movies by Marvel. Arad’s animating belief about Marvel was that the company could unlock the maximum value from its comic-book characters only through films, with that medium’s potential for huge paydays. Marvel’s main foray into movies began with a 1998 vampire epic based on Marvel hero – Blade which earned $133 million at the box office. Though Marvel made almost nothing (Arad says Marvel made only $25,000 from the first Blade movie, thanks to lousy licensing terms negotiated years earlier), the movie’s success gave Arad leverage with reluctant studios. Fox bit into X-Men which grossed nearly $300 million globally following its 2000 release. Hollywood jumped on the Marvel bandwagon, pumping out two Men in Black films (total worldwide gross: $1 billion), the Spider-Man megahits, and profitable films based on lesser known Marvel characters like Daredevil and the Punisher.
Tired of having production houses earn the meat of the profit, Marvel decided to make the films themselves. Marvel tied up with Paramount to handle distribution of the films. After paying the costs of a film’s production, distribution, and marketing, Marvel retains 100 percent of all revenue streams, from box office to DVDs to TV licensing. Marvel, now with Disney, has a tough competitor in DC Comics who owns the rights on heroes like Superman and Batman. DC Comics too have been taken over by Warner Bros. DC Comic’s Batman Returns remains the best comic hero movie ever made. Marvel’s characters are more complex and having conflict of the mind than DC’s.
When Hulk, one of Marvel’s most loved comic hero, did not really shine at box office, Arad decided to remake the movie with less darker version of the character, hence the strong love angle in Incredible Hulk, Iron Man also bought in good amount of moolah to the company and lowered its debt. Marvel is now working on releasing Thor, its most famous Captain America and Avengers in 2011. Meanwhile the rights for X-Men are still with 20th Century Fox and hence will be made by them.
Money comes from strangest of places once people start believing in themselves and take the control!
Downtime Notice
Jul 19th
Dear Readers,
Lately some of my plugins have stopped upgrading themselves, so I got the hint – I need to upgrade to latest version of WordPress!
Am planning to install the new version today night IST. So the personal blog will not be available from 23:00 IST Jul 19th to 02:00 IST Jul 20th.
Thanks for the readership!
Update (01:00 IST) : The blog has been successfully updated!
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Jun 27th
Had tried to see the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind many times before but then every time it was at about 1AM in Friday or a Saturday night and I would leave the movie in very starting as it was too slow for that hour. All the while I have been hearing from people about how great the movie is, but never knew about the storyline or the theme for it. Surrealism has always attracted me, and am glad I watched this movie today!
Such a mentally gripping and vivid capture of surrealism can only come out of European mind, so it is no surprise to know the movie is directed by a French director Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction and neosurrealism to explore the nature of memory and romantic love.
Story
Emotionally withdrawn Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and the emotionally dysfunctional, Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) meet each other for the first time at a beach in Montauk, New York, and subsequently become romantically involved. However, they fall out of love with each other. Clementine discovers the services of Lacuna, Inc., a firm that is able to erase all specific memories from her mind (of Joel). Joel cames to know about this and himself opts to have his mind wiped of all memory of Clementine too.
During the process Joel realizes that his memories of Clementine are being erased in reverse order. As he experiences in his mind the earlier, happier times with her, he realizes that he wants to stop the procedure and keep the memories of Clementine. He begins to fight the mind wipe by trying to hide Clementine in the deeper memories of his mind but realizes that he is not able stop the mind wipe. Before his last memory of Clementine at the Montauk beach house, on the day they first met is erased, she tells him she loves him and says “meet me in Montauk.”
Joel wakes up the next day, decides to skip work, and goes to Montauk where he meets Clementine (who is now a stranger). Unaware of whom each other is, they quickly bond and begin to form a new relationship. After returning to the city, Joel drives Clementine to her home where Clementine finds her Lacuna file in the mail and plays the tape from it for her and Joel. Clementine travels to Joel’s apartment. She finds Joel with his own Lacuna tape and holding a drawing from their former relationship that was missed out when he handed over his possessions to Lacuna. They both become aware of their former relationship, and that it had flaws. The two recognize that their previous relationship may had problems based on their past relationships with other people, but decide not to let those failings prevent them from seeing each other… and trying again. The movie ends with them in a teasing snowball fight on the Montauk beach.
Personal Rant
We all have the memories that we will like to just forget; they say that it takes for wounds of hurt to heal and I would point that the yes the time would heal, but how much time is what we decide on our own and that is the main thing. Some people takes few days and others few years. We never forget our first love and for people from advanced culture – our first parents! Blessed are those who found spouses in their first love but others go through hell. Then there are people who have an embarrassing experience which they would just like to forget while others have trauma to be forgotten.
US researchers said in 2008 that they were able to selectively erase memories from mice in a laboratory, raising hopes human memory afflictions like post-traumatic stress syndrome can one day be cured. But then how many of us who would wish for these memories being deleted, be actually ready for deletion? These memories may be tough on heart but then they are lined with something we always cherish deep within. Yes, it is for the people who have suffered greater at the wrong hands, not for those who suffered at the right hands, for we the latter, shall keep and protect these memories deep within for ever.
How do I get time to blog?
Jun 15th
This is one question that is hurled towards me every now and then. It would start as that I saw your blog, nice posts… and then the inevitable pops up, “How do you get time to blog?”. It has not made me to ponder ever, but when one of my company’s director asked me this question, I gave him my usual answer of passion and interest, but it really made the right side of my brain to step in.
I remember reading a blog post of my blogger friend, Sara. Her husband had once marked her blogging as a hobby as she blogged during her free time only and she retorted, “NO!!- I think blogging is not something you can do when you find time. It is compulsive, it can be so dominating and demanding!! You get some idea in your head and your fingers start itching to type in-spare time or not, you have to do it.
It keeps on gnawing at you from within.
And its like a heavy rock you carry on yourselves and keep feeling the weight of it, unless its typed in and posted on the blog.”
I agree. Once we start sharing our thoughts via blog, it takes on from just a casual writing to an effort of a worthy reading (may not be true for all!). So I told my director that if he realised, most of the posts were done late in night or had many drafts before they could see the light of the server just because I would be too tired to complete it!
Personally, blogging keeps me alive. I need to breathe my thoughts, if my work gets monotonous then the urge heightens. We all are in a rat race and something that makes us a worthy in own eyes is very vital, and that is where my expressions come. I do not write the blog posts to get advertisement money (there aren’t ads anyway on blog as of now!), so expression becomes paramount.
Simply put, there are things which we need to do and there are things which we want to do. The second one can fuel the first and first one can kill the second. The level of compromise is the only thing that we decide over here.
The New Address
Feb 13th
Its quite fascinating to think that I have done almost all those things that we would be doing for a change of house. I was happy with my small old home, where I had done lot of decoration which had taken months of minor adjustments, major overhauls, little brushing around the corner and few showpieces here and there. But then friends told me how the newly constructed city of WordPress offered ravishing apartments and bungalows with various new age facilities that we aspire for. I saw it and actually found that they were damn nice, things were efficient, lot of people were living there and kept sharing goodies between themselves for ease of each other. In short it was enchanting.
So here am I, I have just moved in. Once I had the structure suited to myself, I had to get some painting done. As I have moved from an apartment to a bungalow (domain name), there is a lot to be done. I am still setting up new rooms. I am yet to introduce a formal gate, the mailbox and the outgoing RSS feeds.
I will keep you guys updated but just to spill few beans, I will be working this V-day at my home to experiment with the entry gate. There will be many more experiments this time, after all its a bungalow!
Do keep telling me your views on the design , content and anything on this site/blog.
