Forget all those Cash for Gold adverts that pepper day-time television like a garrish, annoying pox, the real way to make a clever buck is to invest in Pixar. Look at the case for investment: they are yet to make a film that is not heralded as a success with both critics and audiences; they have yet to make a film that wouldn’t instantly make even the most Scrooge-like bank manager crawl on his belly to lend them money; and crucially, they appear to be going from strength to strength. In short, they are one of the most bankable commodities in the history of business. They’re the bona-fide Sure Thing. Shame their stock will have gone even further through the astronomically high ceiling thanks to Toy Story 3 surpassing The Incredibles’ $70.5m opening weekend figure with a thumping $109m at the box office.

But don’t just take my word for it. The clever souls over at knowyourmoney.co.uk have featured a look at Pixar’s financial success story, with some nifty looking graphs, and a lot of information that presented on screen together makes for a jaw-dropping amount of good business for the Disney owned animation house. First up, they have a pictorial representation of each Pixar film’s production costs:

The most eye-opening fact here is that Finding Nemo cost over $20 million less to make then Monsters Inc- I know there was a lot put into the individual fur animation that was so ground-breaking at the time, but the Pixar lot sent all of their animators (and presumably some high-ranking free-loaders) on full scuba diving courses so they could get a real feel for the sea before they set about animating it. That’s got to have set them back a pretty penny.

Next up we have the box office performances are each film, in another, equally impressive looking graph:

So, it definitely looks like Finding Nemo is the studio’s biggest hit in terms of money spent and retrieved from the box office- I would love to see a pictogram that includes DVD sales, as I have a sneaking suspicion that the recent Blu-Ray redos of Toy Story 1 and 2 will have helped boost their financial figures, especially with audiences about to experience Toy Story 3 for the first time in Britain very soon.

Feeling decidely math-ish, I had a go at knocking up a graph myself, to indicate the critical reception of each film, so that we can all marvel at the ridiculous ratings that Pixar films inevitably get on Rotten Tomatoes…

If this is any indication, Cars 2and Monsters Inc 2 are sure to break through the 100% barrier with their releases in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

The article also has the astounding revelation that merchandise from Cars, the film that everyone loves to pinpoint as Pixar’s one minute blip (just look at the graph what I made!) has made $2 billion in retail revenue EVERY YEAR since it was released. That is insanity. But then, alongside the Toy Story franchises, Cars was easily the most marketable merchandise project of the Pixar films- the simple fact is, pre-teen boys (and girls to a lesser degree) still love playing with their cars.

Toy Story 3 is set to follow in Cars successful merchandise footprints, with an estimated $2.4 billion expected to be generated from affiliated products this fiscal year alone. Not that surprising to me, as I’ve already gone out and bought some (I am a rabid collector of Mr Potato Heads- especially the movie tie-in models), in the shape of these little beauties:

Head over to knowyourmoney.co.uk to read the full article and see the graphs in their intended glory.

So the reviews are coming in for The Last Airbender, and boy, it don’t look pretty. There had been hope that it would be a resurrection of sorts for M. Night Shyamalan’s filmmaking career but, as it stands, it could be the final nail. So is this the end for the once loved director?

The Last Airbender currently stands at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, with just 9 positive reviews. For those not keeping count, that’s bad. As we know, however, review scores are only half the story. If the movie makes a big enough profit, M. Night could rise phoenix like from the ashes of his recent career. So what are its box office chances?

With a reported $150m production budget, there is sure to be a pretty weighty marketing package behind the film, which may be almost as much again. As we all know, if you get enough promotional power behind a film, people are gonna go see it. But in this instance, is that going to be enough? Looking at the other elements, i think the answer is going to be a resounding no.

The first alarm bell is the complete lack of star power. The director himself has seen his star falling for several years, so little help there. And whilst there are some recognisable names and faces within the movie, from a mainstream point of view, i don’t see any actors that are going to draw people in. Dev Patel did star in the Academy Award winning Slumdog Millionaire, but one big movie doesn’t necessarily make a star.

Brand recognition is usually a selling point with movies based on an existing property, but that isn’t necessarily going to be that effective here either. Adapted from a Nickelodeon kid’s animated series, it did get big ratings for a cartoon, but only ran for three seasons. Being mainly a kid’s show, it has limited appeal to non-geeky adults, so i can’t imagine the average movie goer will know much about it. Avatar does have a dedicated cult following, but there is a big difference between cult and mass appeal. This will be made even worse by the fact that it isn’t actually named after the original cartoon, thanks to Mr Cameron’s co-opting of the Avatar name several years ago for a little project he released last year.

It’s impossible to foresee really, but it is highly possible that The Last Airbender will fail to recoup its budget, and it is currently estimated that it will have an opening weekend of around $50m. The review scores certainly aren’t hopeful – to put it in perspective, Jonah Hex opened with around $5m in its first weekend, and had a higher aggregate score on Rotten Tomatoes.

So what does this mean for Shyamalan? Was this his last chance to get the audience back onside? There is a lot of apathy, and even hatred around for the director now, but i think some of it is a little harsh. I’m not a big fan myself, but i did like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, as did a lot of people. Both of these films are present in the IMDb250, and were huge when they were originally released. His output since has steadily deteriorated, but when i hear people blast his work, and include his earliest two films, it gets to me. A lot of those same people praised these movies when they were originally released, and it is almost like they are trying to rewrite Shyamalan’s history. There is a reason that he was given a huge amount of money to make The Last Airbender, and that is because he HAS shown great talent in the past.

The Last Airbender was a risk, for both director and studio. It is set to fail by the looks of it, but i don’t necessarily think either made the wrong decision. Shyamalan is a filmmaker, that is his job, to make films. We were all complaining that he was making the same type of movie over and over, and that we were sick of his ‘formula’. So he took on something completely different, something ambitious, and i think he should be praised for trying. He is being lambasted now, but if he had gone and made another movie in the style of his others, he would have gotten a similar reaction. It was almost a no-win situation for him. Yes, if he had done a good job of The Last Airbender, then he would have won, and we would all have congratulated him, so for that, he is culpable. I just don’t think he should be criticised for taking the project on, just for its failure.

I think, however, we should also praise Paramount for taking the risk. Shyamalan was struggling, but had created a reputation for crafting some good drama, with interesting stories. The studio had a property that they could have easily handed over to a Michael Bay or Stephen Sommers, and sat back as the overblown popcorn action movie brought the dollars rolling in. They tried to do something a bit different. They gambled money on a man who at least had the potential to produce something unique, something special. That this decision ultimately ended in failure is unfortunate, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a wrong one. Without decisions like this we wouldn’t get films like Where The Wild Things Are, or Green Zone. It is a miracle either of these movies ever got commissioned, and whilst neither was a resounding commercial or critical success, both hold a lot of meaning for those that do love them. No company can afford to make losses on all their movies, but with the huge amounts of profit that are gained in the industry, i think it is important to make a gamble now and then on an interesting idea, and a talented filmmaker, that could quite conceivably produce something great.

I’m not suggesting that we should all go out and watch The Last Airbender. If it is as bad as everyone is saying, we should treat it with the contempt that it deserves. Neither am i saying that Shyamalan should be given another $150m to make a movie. He has had his chance, and much like Richard Kelly after his flops Southland Tales and The Box, his best option is to go away and quietly try to construct something brilliant, and hopefully surprise us in a couple of years time. In order to do this, he needs a bit of slack. If The Last Airbender does fail financially, and if he retreats humbly, give him the space. Of course, if it makes Transformers 2 type profits, we should all be very, very scared…

Bazmann – You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/baz_mann

Last week i wrote an article questioning why movies with low average review ratings, like New Moon, break box office records regardless. It got me thinking about the whole concept of rating a movie, and whether ‘marks out of ten’ was really still a useful film criticism tool.

Here at HUG, like many modern movie blogs, we tend not to give numerical ratings. The reason, on my part at least, is because criticizing a work of art that has taken hundreds of people many many months to create is pretentious enough. To then go on to attribute it an arbitrary numerical value seems crass. Now, i appreciate the reasons why a grading is given. Some people don’t want to trawl through lines and lines of text to decipher whether a film is worth watching. A large percentage of casual movie goers just look at the number of stars at the bottom, and go by that. This isn’t necessarily wrong, it offers a tidy summary of the quality of the movie.

The problem, of course, is that a review is an opinion. By merely going by a number on a page, you’re putting your faith in the opinion of someone you don’t know, with no idea if they have similar tastes. New Moon is a good example. Many reviews have marked it down saying it sticks too closely to the source novel, instead of adapting the story more to the needs of a well structured movie. The Twilight fans however have pointed to that as one of the reasons they DO like it. They love the book, and they want a faithful copy of that source.

Watchmen suffered similarly in reviews, with critics suggesting it shouldn’t have been a direct translation. Yes, it would have been more accessible to non-fans if this had been the case, but the people that love the graphic novel would have been outraged. With these two properties, the fans went to see the films anyway, so maybe 2012 is a better example.

I look at a review, it gives 2012 two out of five stars. I decide not to see it. If i’d read the full review, it would have been bemoaning the lack of intelligent storyline and nuanced acting, decrying it’s over the top action and CGI effects. I might like over the top action and effects, but i’ve missed out now.

How about five out of ten rated films? Surrogates is about as average a movie you can get, nothing particularly good but nothing spectacularly bad either. 9 has some great elements, the animation is spectacular and the action beautifully choreographed, but the plot development and storyline are seriously flawed. Both five out ten, but for wildly different reasons. Avatar hits in two weeks. There are two elements to be considered, the usual storyline considerations, and whether the new 3D effects are a huge leap forward. The story could be good, but the tech disappointing. Are we going to give two separate ratings?

I know what you’re thinking. ‘People should read the text as well as the score if they really want a review of the film’. And yes, they should. But too often they don’t, or won’t. You present an easy option, and people get lazy. A bigger problem is that sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Meta Critic collate ratings and provide an overall average. This results in news stories like ‘New Moon Averages Just 38%’. This colours people’s perceptions of a movie before they even get near a review, so quite often they won’t bother reading one. I accept that yes, if people are happy to go solely by a number that’s their prerogative, and if they really care they should check out the full write up.

My biggest problem with a rating system is that you can never give a movie full marks. The reasons are two-fold. Firstly, full marks suggest perfection. Who has the stones to call any film perfect? Ask yourself, which movies would you give ten out of ten? The Godfather? The Shawshank Redemption? Dark Knight? There are some amazing films, but could we honestly call any of them perfect?

The other reason why you can never give a film top marks is that no matter how brilliant it is, there’s the possibility a superior movie could be released the following week. How can you give a far superior piece the same rating? In a hypothetical situation, imagine The Godfather is released, and you give it ten out of ten. Then, like Che, Part II is released the next month. How do you rate it?

It makes a mockery of the numerical grading system. As journalists, we have a responsibility to tell the full story, not stamp a piece with a potentially misleading one digit summary. At the same time, the reader has their own responsibility to use all available data to make an informed decision. If they don’t, they could be missing out on a movie they’d love.

Bazmann ““ You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/baz_mann