Forum - View topicNEWS: Thermae Romae Creator Got 1 Million Yen/US$10,000 for Film
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Spotlesseden
Posts: 3514 Location: earth |
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lol 10k. She needs to ask for like couple millions next time. This movie made more than the new Evangelion movie.
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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The real money is in the gross (not net) revenue of the film. If she'd held out out for 1% of the gross revenue from a film that made US$66m, she would have earned US$660,000 before income tax. Much better than a pathetic US$11,000 upfront fee.
I know that Manga-kas are absorbed in their work and aren't savvy at knowing how much the rights to a movie should be sold for. But it doesn't take much business acumen to know that asking for gross revenue is the smart way to go. Her publisher isn't the creator, she is, and she should put a higher value on her work. And if she didn't know what the rights were selling for then it was her fault for not taking more of an interest. I know if I created something that was then going to be turned into a live-action movie I'd want to know exactly how much I was going to get before signing away the rights. |
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mewpudding101
Industry Insider
 Posts: 2210 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Ouch, she got duped. Hope she will really get more next time.
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Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
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@dtm: It depends on how well she(and her publisher) were expecting the movie to do. If they were expecting a flop, then an upfront fee's the smart thing to do.
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dan9999
Posts: 648 |
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Thats the true objective of copyright: ripoff creative minds.
There you have it pro-copyright supporters that are so fast to defend publishers. She learned the hard way the lesson that she can never trust an evil greedy publisher. |
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oblivious247
Posts: 242 |
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So....because she didn't get paid enough, she shouldn't have gotten paid at all and we should be able to get her stuff for free. Right..... |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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I don't buy this at all. Simple maths tells us that even if the movie had only made US$1,100,000, then she still would have had the same earnings as getting an upfront fee US$11,000 (assuming an arbitrary 1%). So the movie would have had to been a flop for her not to get much money. However, she still would have got some money with a percentage take, and by accepting an upfront fee with no percentage she has limited herself to that measly US$11,000. It's risk-reward. With a percentage of the gross she runs the risk of getting little money but she also is eligible for a big payout should the movie even be moderately successful. No-one could have really predicted that it would be the second-highest-grossing movie of the year in Japan, but at the same time it should have been clear to her publisher (who is either incompetent or deliberately screwed her over) that the movie was probably not going to flop. At least, not flop so much that it got less than a million American dollars. Out of the one-hundred eighty-one movies that were released in Japan in 2012, one-hundred fifty-one earned more than US$1,100,000. That's more than four-fifths. The creator of Thermae Romae should have backed herself and her work more. The risk was low and the potential rewards were big, but she caved under pressure and folded instead of holding out for winning a bigger hand. She'd make an awful poker player. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14886 |
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Upfront fee + royalties. Hopefully for her for home video sales.
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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Thats right fight the powers by downloading manga for free. That will teach the evil publishers and the evil creators who work for publishers that you fully expect them to work 24/7 for revenue you get from web ads and selling Cafe Press T-shirts. |
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dan9999
Posts: 648 |
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Say what you want, shame on you that even in the face of this cynical ripofff you still dont dare questions a publisher actions and on the contrary some of you blame the artists!
Speechless. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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^
She still let the publisher negotiate the rights and accepted the publisher's offer of one million yen. While it does sound like her publisher deliberately screwed her over, she still must accept some responsibility for agreeing to such a pathetic amount of money. She's the original creator and ultimately holds the rights to her work. She doesn't need to accept whatever paltry amount her publisher has negotiated for her, and can tell her editor to go back and demand more from the movie studio. Too many Manga-ka are all too happy to hand over financial responsibilities to their editors and then wonder why they get such raw deals. I do feel sorry when naive people are exploited by the people they trust. But this woman clearly allowed herself to be exploited and has to take responsibility for agreeing to the figure her editor recommended. It amazes me that she was content with the figure before the movie was released, but now it is a big success she is outraged. Hello. Is she so simple in the head that she doesn't release a flat fee is a flat fee and doesn't change no matter how much money the movie makes? She's a moron. Don't get me wrong, her editor and publishing company are arseholes for doing this to her. In fact, in some countries they might be liable to being sued for not properly representing their client and doing the best for her. I'm not saying the woman is completely at fault, not at all. But at the same time she's not blameless for the situation she finds herself in. Naivety is only so much of a defence; there comes a point where ignorance becomes stupidity. She had child-like trust in her editor, obviously didn't do basic due diligence, and despite being an adult had little concept of taking charge of her IP. Selling movie rights can be a fraught experience, but even if she knows little about it (and let's be honest, few people would be experts), basic common sense, and some phonecalls to fellow Manga artists whose work also had live-action adaptations would have told her that the figure she was being offered was far too low. She shouldn't have signed off on the deal unless she was happy with it. And by all accounts she was happy, until she realised she could have made far more money if she'd done her homework and held out for a better deal. |
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Ranemoraken
Posts: 139 |
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Being too busy to care about her welfare, while most likely the truth, immediately invalidates her right to whine. I'm too busy to make money? Too busy to work? Too busy to feed yourself? No. You're busy doing these things. If you can't do this yourself, then you hire people to help you do it.
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SetSailsAndGo
Posts: 3 |
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It´s not true that the movie was the second highest grossing movie in 2012. One Piece Film Z was. You can´t rely on Boxofficemojo because the USD has fallen a lot lately compaired to the time where Thermae Romae ran in theatres.
You can see the news here. Thermae Romae had a total gross of 5,98 billion yen, whereas One Piece Film Z has about 6,8 billion yen by now (and it´s still running). |
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Charred Knight
Posts: 3085 |
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We do question the publisher at the same time we dont make suggestions that would actually screw the artist. |
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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There seems to be a lot of unfair presumption about Mari Yamazaki's emotional state that go well beyond what the article presents.
Pardon me if there is an inaccurate presumption in this, but I must ask: How would Ms. Yamazaki be better if if there was no such thing as copyright? In that case, the film-makers wouldn't have needed to pay her even the million Yen. They could have just done it. I think that you might have confused this issue in the name of your crusade. The villain of the piece, so to speak, does not seem to be the privilege of controlling exclusive rights to certain ideas, but the publishing company giving her bad advice. Copyright, in fact, seems incidental here. What I do not understand is the nature of the publishing company's actions. The article makes it seem as though the fee was not something that they controlled or mandated, but that they suggested and that Ms. Yamazaki accepted. What would the publisher's interest in suggesting an unreasonable low fee be? Does it make them more money somehow? Are they trying to depress the cost of licensing to make their properties more attractive to production companies? Perhaps all that happened is that Mari Yamazaki got bad advice from a source that she had generally trusted and made the mistake of following it. Unfortunate, but not especially scandalous or damning. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
I think that this is unreasonably condemnatory of Ms. Yamazaki and annoyingly phrased. I don't see why we must pillory somebody for this either way or why the publisher should go without criticism for having suggested such a low fee. Implicitly siding so contumeliously with a large publishing firm against one hard-working woman seems rather distasteful to me. What is there really worth getting so haughty and mean-spirited about in this? Last edited by Surrender Artist on Tue Feb 26, 2013 7:59 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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