Would you call Laika successful?

Would you call Laika successful?

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Not especially, but that’s just because they have infinite money and thus don’t care about being successful in the slightest

What they're doing is very admirable but from almost every stand point, beyond craftsmanship and artistic integrity, they're fairly unsuccessful. Shine on you crazy rich fucks.

At making good movies? Yes. At making money not so much, I think they mostly break even. So keep buying those Air Jordans.

Still haven't seen Box Trolls for some reason...

Paranorman and Coraline were pretty good. Kubo and Boxtrolls are just passable. Compelling writing was never one of their strong suits.

It's generally considered their weakest film, but I honestly found it rather enjoyable. The humor was usually pretty on point.

Coraline > Paranorman > Kubo
Haven't seen Boxtrolls

>these niggas slept on Kubo
Well I, for one, enjoyed it thoroughly.

What'd you like about it?

When you're owned by Nike does it really matter?

The first act was absolutely amazing but after that it felt a bit of a standard, albeit amazing looking, adventure story.
But I enjoyed it too.

>Would you call Laika successful?
No, don't get me wrong, I enjoy their films but they would have shut down years ago considering how they don't ever make their money back (except for Coraline, but only by a small margin). The only reason that the company is still afloat is the CEO, who's the son to the co-founder of Nikes.

they are making films that I enjoy, so yeah.

Literally the only rich person worth a crap. Keep going you crazy rich guy.

This man directed Kubo, let that sink in.
youtube.com/watch?v=Y14dDzGPFbs

Paranorman is still a favorite movie of mine

Paranorman and Coraline were great, Box Trolls fell flat to me and I have yet to see Kubo

I don't really know why people didn't like Kubo. I thought it was fantastic.

Same. The act was a little weak but it was overall really solid.

Financially they are not exactly a powerhouse, but I don't think that's really what they're after. They're being financed by a shoe maker and distributor which is worth billions; money is not a priority.
So, in the sense that they have found a stable form of income to keep their creative ideas flowing, making movies for the hell of it rather than to appeal to a demographic or make a quick buck I'd say they're pretty successful.
I'd dare say a good chunk of Sup Forums wishes they had such a sweet deal as Laika has.

So the literal power of money is what's keeping Laika open for business? Oh Capitalism, enabling artists to truly express their craft to it's fullest. Now if only we could help them come up with an idea that will actually make bank....

If anybody is near Portland they’ve got a great Laika exhibit at the art museum. It’s pretty incredible to the models and sets in person.

They weren't afraid to show a child character, in a children's movie, straight-up fight the villains. Not "run through a busy area to lose them". Not "hide in a comically unlikely spot". FIGHT. It was refreshing. And as upsetting as it was to see both of his parents die on-screen and stay that way, it felt like the plot justified it. They didn't magically come back to life as soon as he accepted responsibility for his grandfather. It was very Japanese, in a way. The reward for the hero was spiritual, rather than physical. That, and the art style. Good God, I love the way it looks.
Fair assessment.

Lots of Kubo fanart being pumped out by the Japanese. They seem to love it, but not sure how well it did financially.

Laika makes Kino, art for the sake of art, don't care about money don't ask test audience or brain trust ot executives how to make money out of this movie, they do it because they can afford it.

It's like opposite of Illumination.

Critically and artistically.

Lol, not capitalism per se, since they're not the ones making money. They're outside of the system.

Well they don't make a lot of money. But they are successful at making good movies.

How come there movies never turn out successful anyway?
Do they not advertise them that much or something?

stopmotion is on the verge of uncanny valley, it's not appealing to everybody, especially when your characters look so warped as you can see in the OP's image.

>How come there movies never turn out successful anyway?
They don't put dozens of millions of dollars into advertising and branding like Illumination, Dreamworks and Disney do. Look on the Kubo website, there's zero merch (aside from an Air Jordans tie in). No Kubo lunchboxes, no stuffed Monkey dolls. They put the money into making the movie and doing a bit of advertising, and making the DVDs and Blurays, and that's it.

they're starting to realize that creepy deformed characters dont sell as well as cute animu characters.

thats why they've been making their newer films cuter and "brighter" to apeal to the masses


I wouldnt be surprised if their next film is about a cute girl with huge eyes in a bright colorful world.

I thought Kubo was great, too. I did think the third act was weak, but really only because the first and second acts were so strong. Everything about the movie just oozes style, and even though it was a standard adventure story it went in a couple of really interesting directions.

I don't think I have to mention that the stop motion was just phenomenal. I hope Travis Knight continues making cool shit with Laika, it's so refreshing to see that kind of craftsmanship in an animated film amidst the never-ending downpour of shitty CGI cartoons for kids.

next movie will be about an adult

also there is a rumour they want to do a 2d feature.

I actually thought that the second arc was somehow weaker. The final act was pretty damn strong, with the parents dying, the final battle and the resolution.
Funny how despite all that my favorite scene of the movie took place during the second act, when Monkey tells Kubo how his parents met.

Finally I have an excuse to post this webm

>thats why they've been making their newer films cuter and "brighter" to apeal to the masses
Kubo really wasn't all that cute or bright for the most part. Yeah it had it's moments when the whole good vs evil fights happened, but those sisters were pretty scary. I know that I would have been scared of them if I was still a kid.

I just realized that only lists domestic US earnings and does not account for World earnings. Also Focus Films is just the distributor. Laika is the actual film creator.

Here are the actual numbers just freshly grabbed from BoxOfficeMojo right now.

Coraline
- Budget: $60 million
- Earnings Worldwide: $124,596,398

ParaNorman
- Budget: $60 million
- Earnings Worldwide: $107,139,399

The Boxtrolls
- Budget: $60 million
- Earnings Worldwide: $109,285,033

Kubo and the Two Strings
- Budget: $60 million
- Earnings Worldwide: $69,929,545

So actually Laika is actually making reasonable profit. But not necessarily mega bucks. Thankfully their owner and funder doesn't care. Surprisingly I thought Kubo made more. Coraline is still their most successful.

>170 million dollars profit over 9 years
That's not too shabby, all things considered. Their next two movies could be 100% losses and they'll still have made money. It's absolute peanuts compared to other studios, but if their focus is to make cool shit and make enough money to keep making cool shit, they're definitely succeeding.

It's clear that they're more concerned with making artistic movies that they want to make and not with profit margins.

They are trying hard to not be like Disney and Illumination. Starting with avoiding toy and tie-in deals, which to everyone else is a weird move when they are making children's entertainment

They are starting to lose on each new movie now. They are probably going to have to lose that faux-Burton style before audiences get tired of it completely.

>They are starting to lose on each new movie now
Except that's not true. Each of their movies has been profitable.

In their contributions to the arts, absolutely and they're easily one of my favorite animation studios.

As a company seeking to make profit, heck no.

Considering how poorly they did domestically, they've done far better then I expected. I guess there strategy of don't bother with the marketing and target the niche audience they know will come is working.

it's just like in the ninjago movie!

No, they haven't. Movie studios only get back 45% of the profits from their movies, the theaters keep the rest. You also have to add marketing, which also eats up the profits a film makes.

Neither of you know what you're talking about because Laika isn't a public company and we don't know what their finances are. They have decent box office earnings (except Kubo), but we don't know what their DVD or digital sales are like. Physical distribution can just as easily have eaten up profits, or made up for money lost at the box office.

/cont: They're still making movies so they're probably not losing billions, but even if they were Travis Knight would just inject more cash into the studio and write off the, so it's really impossible to know.

He means they are making less and less with each new release

>Write off the losses
fucking butter fingers

Considering the dude who runs Laika is the trust fund baby of the guy who owns fucking NIKE of all companies, I very much doubt he gives a shit if his movies "make a profit" more so than they are critically acclaimed, which they are (for the most part). But none of their movies have won any Academy Awards so its kinda hard to say. It really depends on what Travis Knight thinks, but I'd personally say their "successful" in whick they get to make what they want and have no worry in the world whether the movie bombs or not.

I did some consulting software work for a movie studio about 10 years ago and whenever finance came up, they kept telling me that as a rule for all movies, theater ticket sales account for only 25% of earnings. Now I don't know if they were averaging with other movies that had more revenue from merchandising like Disney and such, or game adaptations, or if they were referring to purely Disc sales (which was obviously a bigger thing in the past). I have no idea how that would stack up with today's market of streaming services and content license fees.

But I'll generally make the point that we don't know how profitable Laika is. I know they Laika doesn't merchandise much (which is semi-sad because I'd love to own more Coraline merch). But I know they did have a couple video game adaptations?

>Academy Awards

just rename them to Disney Awards. they win regardless of quality.

Does anyone in the film industry know exactly how much profit a film makes? No one seems to want to divulge the nitty gritty of how the profit is divided to know if it actually made money or not.

Man, how could they afford the ghost of the flash for this?

>The only reason that the company is still afloat is the CEO, who's the son to the co-founder of Nikes.
Why isn't this sort of thing more common? What do people born into rich-as-fuck families normally do?

It is, just for some reason not in this corner entertainment world as one might expect. Animation is hard and takes a shitload of work. Most trust fund kids just become producers and let the studios do their own thing and remain hands-off most of the time.

Also a lot of them go into comfier or more insane industries that also let them not really bother with the day to day activities, but sit around and hang out. Like off and off-color bars that only serve strange things most people have never heard of before. underground restaurants, companies that only produce fully biodegradable shoes or skateboards, weird shit that is not going to make a lot of money but sounds "cool and interesting"

Surprisingly this

Any time you see some really fucked up "Who the hell would pay for that" business, chances are it is a billionaire trust fund child playing business owner. Shit like bars that serve exotic waters from around the world, expensive designer bags for dogs, or art galleries for a very specific thing like pictures only made from bottle caps of drinks found in third world countries, or South African rare tree driftwood, and placed in neighborhoods where the rent begins around $15-20K a month.

This looks like a DBZ fight

They don't have to be. That's the beauty of it.

Oh shit my bad, didn't see the list properly. But what muddles the water a bit more though is that it also doesn't account for cost of marketing.
>I guess there strategy of don't bother with the marketing and target the niche audience they know will come is working.
I don't know about that. I have seem them market the film a couple of times on youtube and television months before it was released. Plus, they aired commercials during the last summer Olympics, so they must be putting at least a large portion of money into marketing.

Financially, absolutely not. Creatively, they are extremely good with some big missteps. Well, one big misstep, everything but Boxtrolls is at worst great.

>Tfw you will never be rich enough to put millions into your passion without worrying about financial loss

...

if the first thing you're worried about is whether your favorite animated studio is making money rather than making great works then i believe your priorities are in the wrong place.

then again, it's my own fault for conflating 'successful' with 'monetarily successful.'

laika produces great films (except box trolls) that have great plots, characters, and stunning animation. they have everything the average person would want in an animated film. and that's all that matters.

>video game adaptations
I would kill for a Laika inspired RPG.

I've noticed that lately too. I'm glad they dig it.

Laika would actually make a profit if they just used CGI like any normal animation studio. They're the definition of needlessly contrarian.

...

Have you maybe considered many people care about the financial success aspect because they want them to continue making quality works?

How does that work exactly? Someone rich is funding them?

>How does that work exactly? Someone rich is funding them?

Yeah. Nike. The shoe company.

How weird, any particular reason why?

It's owned by the owner of Laika's dad

Dang thats pretty cool, id love to be rich enough to be able to fund a hobby i love that normally would not exist otherwise due to financial reasons.

while its not remotely possible. I would love a silent hill version coraline game. Preferably sh2 keep the story personal and not world ending like sh1 and 3.

> ctrl + f psychonauts
>zero results

Psychonauts with a stopmotion aesthetic would be top notch.

>What do people born into rich-as-fuck families normally do?
Hedonism

That would be so rad. I loved the story of that game but couldn't stand the actual gameplay. Watching it in movie form would be great.

I don't think their marketing is that strong and that aside, I think a core aspect of their design philosophy prevents them from being marketable.

They just don't really design cute or attractive characters. Their artistic direction embraces flaws and 'ugliness' and looking a little off-kilter. This isn't a bad thing and contributes to the unique look of their movies but it probably hurts profitability. Isn't being a shit, their character design probably isn't helping. They could probably keep the designs of their environments the same and keep the stories the same but see more success with more traditionally attractive or cute characters.

You know looking at the process like this you realize, these people are crazy

wtf, he's fucking awesome for laika... but not this shit

It takes a certain kind of person to do stop motion. Just look at the insane amount of work Ray Harryhausen did for a movie about cowboys fighting a dinosaur.

youtu.be/7l6MhxYq4OM

Critically, yes.
Financially, of fucking course not.

One of my great fantasies in a win a super lottery scenario is to fund films and comicbooks that Don't have to worry about drawing a profit.

Also commissioning high-quality animated pornography

>keeping obscure medium relevant >needlessly contrarian

If they made 2d movies you'd kiss their hands in gratitude

Isle of Dogs looks like its going to be better than all of Laikas films put together

why does it have to be a competition

>kino

I don't think that you have enough IQ to watch a cartoon.

>Also commissioning high-quality animated pornography
I share the same fantasy.

They WANT to do 2d movies.

This scene gives me chills every time.

>which is semi-sad because I'd love to own more Coraline merch
Thanks to one of these threads I was made aware of a good sale of a high quality Coraline doll that's due to arrive this month. I can give you a link if you want.

Talking about that one NECA made

Yeah I saw that at a ToysRus last week

Shoulda bought it then

>also there is a rumour they want to do a 2d feature
Not really a rumor, as it was mentioned by CEO Travis Knight in an interview that he'd like for Laika to do one, but not anytime soon.

It was pretty funny how they resorted to advertising Boxtrolls as the "Jelly! JELLY!" "Funny Jelly Man!" movie. Even though those are just some short bits, showing how Eggs' father has lost his mind while being captured and hung upside-down for so long.

>50% of earnings go to theaters
>10% of remainder goes to distributor
>marketing, financing, and other costs of keeping business open

Laika does not make a reasonable profit. It is questionable whether they are profitable even with home video and merchandising included.

Believe me, I wish they did.

$40mil check from Nike.

You ever thought about these people who do this as a 9-5?
Like even as a soulless job as retail you spend you day as a list of things like "I'm gonna unstock winterwear, take assist perfume department after lunch, and help with customer service around 3-4 after which I check out.
And this guy's day is "I'm gonna move the monkey and snap the pic, move the monkey and snap the pic, move the monkey and snap the pic, and if we keep this up we'll have a whole flip by the end of the day."