The Punisher on film

[Bad City Blue]

Just re watched all 3 Punisher movies and have written a blog about The Punisher on film.

Have a look, and share it if you like it

Cheers

BCB

http://cool-stuff-you-will-like.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-punisher-on-film-overview.html

[JamesC]

Yep, I pretty much agree with what you've written. The only way forward for the Punisher on screen is TV I think.
I'm not sure there's enough sex in The Punisher to sell it though.

[Bad City Blue]

lotta strip clubs in New York... 

[JOE SOAP]

Just re watched all 3 Punisher movies and have written a blog about The Punisher on film.

Have a look, and share it if you like it

Cheers

BCB

http://cool-stuff-you-will-like.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-punisher-on-film-overview.html

While I enjoyed some of the humour in War Zone, I thought The Punisher was a better made film, even if it's not an accurate portrayal of the character.

As you state in your article, the budget was $15 million and that was basically to make the film, which makes you wonder where the rest of the officially reported budget of $33 million went to ... director Jonathan Hensleigh gives the answer:





NRAMA: In terms of the larger view of the production, why was this movie shot in Tampa Florida as opposed to a city that looks more like New York like Toronto or Vancouver?

JH: With the budget we had we knew didn't have the money to shoot it in Manhattan. We knew we were going to move it out of Manhattan. We just simply had no money. Look, this has never been reported but if you want hard statistics on the shooting of this film. It's quoted widely that the picture was made for 30 or 32 million dollars. That's not the case. The amount of money required over 50 days to actually shoot the images, our below the line costs, excluding the salaries we paid to the actors and all the other costs, was $13.5 million.

NRAMA: Wow...that's pretty...cheap.

JH: The post production on it was about a million and a half. In other words, the shooting and all the post production, was probably about $15.5 million.

NRAMA: For an action film that's really low.

JH: Yeah, so one would ask, "Well where did all the money go?" Well, you have John Travolta and all of the other actors and then, because it was an Artisan film and not a real studio film, we had to have a bond in contingency, which was ten percent and that ended up being $3.5 million. A bond in contingency is when you have to pay an insurance company that bonds the movie, in other words if you can't finish, you have to have a contingency. We had a huge contingency on the film. Then there were all these ridiculous executive producer credits. All of this money went to all these various producers. I was just actually staring at the official budget because we're figuring out the profit/loss margins on the film right now.

So we had unbelievably tight financial constraints on this movie and at the very end the powers that be decided that the Kuwait scene couldn't be done for the money we had in the budget so it was pulled out. We had to reconfigure the script accordingly right at the end of the schedule.

NRAMA: I always thought that $30 million was a lot for Lionsgate to spend on one film.

JH: Well remember, it's not Lionsgate. It was Artisan so Lionsgate did not greenlight the film. Lionsgate had nothing to do with the film. They purchased Artisan while we were shooting and then their marketing people decided to release the movie against Kill Bill.

NRAMA: It was an odd choice to release it against Kill Bill, wasn't it?

JH: I'm not going to respond to that.

There's no possible way you could shoot the script that I wrote in Toronto for $13 million. There's just no way. You couldn't shoot it in an urban environment with city lockdown. I don't know if you're aware of what's required to lock down an urban environment, but the costs are extraordinary. The reason why Tampa was chosen was because Tampa wanted to incite film production in its city. So they basically allowed us to do anything and allowed us to do it for free. So Tampa PD became kind of our second ADs. We said to the mayor's office and the film commission, "Hey we want to shut down the entire downtown between the hours of seven am and six pm on the weekdays" with just 48 hours notice. They said "Sure. Go ahead." It could be done in Toronto but it would be eight times the cost.






http://archive.today/2UPip

[Theblazeuk]

Interesting. Those Executive Producer credit bollocks actually take money out of the budget?

That said, the easiest way to cut those costs would have been to not require two streets to be locked down. Smaller scale would seem the way forward with the Punisher anyway (Dirty Laundry). Clearing out a tenement of gangsters would seem appropriate if the Malaysian police and the Judges hadn't got there first

[JayzusB.Christ]

Interesting and well-written blog there; and I agree completely.  Hollywood never quite got to grips with the Punisher, especially given the wealth of comics material out there (I've only read the Ennis ones,  but there's a lot to work with there). 
Pity, because Ray Stevenson was perfect for the role in my book.  And yeah, a TV series could be really good.

[JamesC]

While Ennis's MAX series has left an indelible mark on the character (and rightly so - it's ace) there are some decent stories from the 80's/90's comics. Circle of Blood is pretty good and the early War Zone issues are great too. Having said that I think any film maker would struggle to make decent Punisher film for a PG13 audience and therein lies the problem.

[Frank]

It's quoted widely that the picture was made for 30 or 32 million dollars. That's not the case ... the shooting and all the post production, was probably about $15.5 million ... (t)hen there were all these ridiculous executive producer credits. All of this money went to all these various producers ... then (Lionsgate's) marketing people decided to release the movie against Kill Bill.

http://archive.today/2UPip

Makes you think about other R-rated, low budget comic adaptations whose makers say they were made for X amount of cash, but whose reported budgets are about $20 million more. Distributed in the US by Lionsgate.

[JOE SOAP]

Makes you think about other R-rated, low budget comic adaptations whose makers say they were made for X amount of cash, but whose reported budgets are about $20 million more. Distributed in the US by Lionsgate.

I'm wiling to take a Producer's word on that one:

Dredd's main audience is an older audience. We then also decided because we were making the movie for $30m to $35m, we couldn't cater in the way those other movies do for the whole four quadrants. -Andrew Macdonald

http://www.screendaily.com/features/one-on-one/andrew-macdonald/5046694.article

[Frank]

Dredd's main audience is an older audience. We then also decided because we were making the movie for $30m to $35m, we couldn't cater in the way those other movies do for the whole four quadrants. -Andrew Macdonald

http://www.screendaily.com/features/one-on-one/andrew-macdonald/5046694.article

I can't remember seeing that article before - thanks.

I was really thinking more of that $30-35 million figure in relation to the director of the Punisher film describing his film's budget being almost doubled by some questionable pay days for executive producers. It makes me wonder whether the reported $45-50 million budget for Dredd (2012) might actually reflect how much cash its makers had to pay out to get the film onto screens (and how much it had to make back), but not how much the film actually cost to make.