Could 'Behind the Candelabra' have been successful as a movie?

Could 'Behind the Candelabra' have been successful as a movie?

"Behind the Candelabra," the Liberace biopic starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, garnered 2.4 million viewers in its premiere Sunday on HBO. The Steven Soderbergh-directed television movie was a huge hit for the cable network -- giving it its best audience since the 2004 movie "Something the Lord Made." Soderbergh has been quite candid about the film's long road to the small screen; it originally was intended as a feature film, but those plans fell apart when Warner Bros. lost interest. According to a recent interview Soderbergh did with The Times, Warner Bros. concluded it would have had to spend $25 million to make and market the film, a number that would have required the studio to earn at least $60 million in its theatrical release. PHOTOS: Billion-dollar movie club But would that be so hard? We're not claiming to be studio marketing executives using finely calibrated statistics. But with some very simplistic arithmetic, we could extrapolate that those 2.4 million viewers could translate into $19.2 million, if we used the average theatrical ticket price of $8. (Since the film would surely be rated R, the ticket price should be higher since children wouldn't be attending.) And that number is just for one showing. Should you add the second screening of the two-hour movie, the number grows to 3.5 million, or $28 million. Surely television viewers and moviegoers aren't equitable, in that you must figure in the extra want-to-see factor for movies watched outside of the home. (It's far easier to flip on the television than secure a baby-sitter.) Plus, you have to figure in the splits with movie theaters that see only half the profits filtering into the studios' coffers. PHOTOS: 'Behind the Candelabra' But if that many viewers were interested in watching Jason Bourne and Gordon Gekko don copious amounts of sequins as they fall in love, wouldn't they be equally compelled to do so for a big-screen debut? Factor in the extra push the film received from its Cannes premiere -- which treated the movie like a feature -- and the risks seem even more negligible. In an era when studios will either spend hundreds of millions, or pocket change, to make a movie -- but nothing in between -- it's understandable why they wouldn't take a chance on "Candelabra." It's just a shame that they wouldn't. There's clearly an audience out there for sophisticated filmmaking, particularly among older viewers (like the ones who would remember Liberace). A screen test between Douglas and Damon should have been enough to prove to the suits at the studio that this was a risk worth taking.



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Things are lookingUpton: High school senior lands supermodel Nina Agdal for prom date

Things are lookingUpton: High school senior lands supermodel Nina Agdal for prom date

As high school dream dates go . . . this was a doozy. After famously falling short on his admittedly game, Internet-borne attempt to coax American swimsuit goddess Kate Upton to accompany him to his prom, Jake Davidson made out just fine in the end. As it happened, Davidson squired Upton-colleague and fellow supermodel Nina Agdal, 21, to his big dance Thursday, instead. "I never thought it was going to happen, but it was quite the twist -- one of the most awesome twists," Davidson told The Los Angeles Daily News. "I'll definitely tell stories about this for the rest of my life." "So we bonded over the inability to slow dance." - High school senior Jake Davidson Here’s how this most improbable of adolescent Cinderella tales came to fruition: Davidson in March conjured a YouTube video that quickly went viral -- with 2.6 million views -- inviting Upton – of all people – to his high school prom. The Milken Community High School senior and Sherman Oaks 17-year-old notably counted off a cadre of reasons during the starstruck soliloquy why Upton should date down, per se, for a single night. “I’m Jewish, 5’9” on a really good day – and I can’t dance. At all,” Davidson ambitiously says in the video. “You’re Christian, 5’10”, and that Cat Daddy video should have won an Oscar for best short film. You could say this is destiny.” And for a New York or, rather, L.A.-minute, it seemed Upton entertained the enterprising invite . . . until she, at last, concluded that her challenging schedule wouldn’t allow for the West Coast detour. But then the improbable occurred and Danish supermodel and fellow Sports Illustrated swimsuit beauty Agdal – who was notably named the magazine’s 2012 Rookie of the Year -- picked up the slack. The Danish darling arrived to Davidson's house 3 p.m., according to the Daily News, emerging from a limo gowned in a flowing sage-green number. Donning heels, she reportedly towered over the high school senior. Yet, together, they reportedly unearthed common ground during the hour-plus-long limo ride through Los Angeles’ notorious traffic-choked streets en route to Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica. "I don't really dance and neither does she," Davidson told The News. "So we bonded over the inability to slow dance." The unlikeliest-of-pairs reportedly attended a pre-prom shindig near Beverly Hills, before proceeding to the dance. But apparently the clock struck midnight a wee-bit early for Davidson, as Agdal retired after only a single hour. However, the adolescent is now holding out for an encore with his dazzling Dane. "I had a great prom. It was shorter than I expected, but it was still an awesome day," Davidson reportedly said. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. "I kind of jokingly invited her to lunch, and I'm still waiting for that," Davidson said Friday morning. "But I definitely said that next time she's in L.A., she's welcome to hit me up." Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/26/things-are-looking-upton-high-school-senior-lands-supermodel-nina-agdal-for/#ixzz2UTM5IUsW


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