All posts by benheck

Ben Heck Show

Introducing The Ben Heck Show!

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I’m finally able to talk about my next super secret project and you’re the first to hear! I have a new internet TV show called The Ben Heck Show, sponsored by element14 and the first episode will be available next Monday, 9/13.

I’ll be taking your requests for build ideas as well as working on one big project which you’ll soon find out about. element14.com has been kind enough to power my show with plenty of tools and components to get all of my builds off the ground, and I’ve been filming every step of the way.

Stay tuned to this space to learn how you can submit ideas for future builds through my upcoming community on element14.com launching 9/13 as well. You can register there to get a head start and I’ll let you know when my community page is live this coming Monday.

Video Games

I’m Not Dead!

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Proof-of-life photo with a juicy blue gill.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, been working on a new project and it’s consumed a lot of time. But fear not, it’s really cool and I should be able to talk about it very soon.

However the podcast may have to continue to take a breather as we see how this new project affects my schedule over time.

Movies

Movie Prediction Madness: July 16-18th

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I’m back after missing a week! (sorry, been busy with a new project)

Opening this weekend:

Inception: The big geek movie of the summer! I sure know I want to see it. This will translate well to box office dollars, I’m just not sure how well. It’s like guessing how much over $100 million a “Twilight” movie will open at.

I’ll do some math then. Geek cred ($35m) + Leonardo DiCaprio ($30m)  +  interesting ad campaign and premise ($30m)  + “From the Director of the Dark Knight” ($50m) MINUS nobody died during production ala Heath Ledger (-$50m) equals $95 million opening weekend. Possibly edging past $100m.

I think the death of Heath Ledger is a sorely unappreciated part of “The Dark Knight”‘s gross, easily accounting for $100-$150 million of it final tally.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Think we’re looking at another Bruckheimer bomb here, a high-concept movie with a concept that’s hard to sell. Plus it’s probably crap. I, like most people, enjoy the “National Treasure” films but as is being proved again and again, it’s the brand, not the actor/director people care about. Still, I could see it doing $30-$35 million for the weekend.Which is being generous.

There was an article recently called  “Whatever happened to the Box Office Bomb?”. It lamented the fact we never get an “Ishtar”, “Last Action Hero” or “Cutthroat Island” anymore. Instead we get “under-performers” that eventually squeak out a profit on DVD.

Let’s examine that with “Prince of Persia”. Worldwide gross $323 million. Cost: $200 million. Sounds good right? Not really. Studios only get back 50%-70% of a movie’s box office gross, the remainder goes to theaters. The percentage changes each week, the longer a movie is out. Opening weekend it might be Studio 80 / theater 20, next week is 70 / 30, and so forth.

This is why movies open huge, fizzle quick and are gone in a month. It is not in the studios interest for them to linger. Back in the 80’s, a movie could often be in theaters for an entire year (ET, Back to the Future, Star Wars). Now that would never happen.

Back to Prince of Persia. It opened weakly but held in OK, so its split is probably closer to 50/50 than 70/30. Let’s be generous and say Disney got 60%.  That puts it at $193 million, which might just barely cover its cost. But then there’s marketing. A typical big film will often spend an amount near or even equal to its budget on advertising. “Prince” had a ton of advertising so let’s say $100 million.

So that’s roughly $100 million it’s still in the hole. The film’s remaining source of income is DVD sales, which in this weak environment it will likely never recover. So the movie lost money.

Is it a true bomb? No, that would be Jonah Hex. But the sad fact is most movies don’t even begin to show a profit until DVD, which is why studios are going nuts over declining DVD sales and piracy.

Closing note: Most of history’s famous bomb movies aren’t really the biggest bombs. Stuff like “Pluto Nash”, “Cutthroat Island”, “Town & Country” did far, far worse than “Ishtar”, “Last Action Hero” or “Waterworld”.

Video Games

Submit a Project Idea, See it Built!

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Do you have an idea for a project you’d like to see me build? Well now’s your chance as we’re taking submissions / ideas for a group of projects this summer / early fall! Here’s how it works:

  1. Come up with an awesome project / idea you’d like to see built.
  2. Visit this page to email us your idea.
  3. If chosen, see your project being built in a few months!
  4. Select builds will be donated to the requester, especially in the case of special needs projects.

More details to come… stay tuned to www.benheck.com and my Twitter to keep in the loop.

NOTE: Any requests for “all in  one combo systems” will be ignored, so please stop sending those.

Movies

Movie Prediction Madness: June 30th-July 4th

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I’m writing this one a bit early since the latest crappy Twilight movie comes out on a Wednesday.

You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting someone who loves those films, or go 10 minutes without getting into a conversation about it, so I’m going to go ahead and predict a 5-day (Wednesday-Sunday) haul of $175 million for “Twilight: Eclipse”. Last fall the first crappy sequel stunned the world by making nearly $150 in a single weekend, and this one’s actually supposed to be “decent” so who knows? Hell, it could push $200 million for the 5 day period – expect records to be broken.

Speaking of broken, let’s move onto M. Night Shyamalan’s career. Here’s a guy who made 3 good movies in 3 years, then drank too much of his own Kool-Aid and starting churning out the turds such as the “The Village” – a film where I was actually upset that I’d watched it and wanted 2 hours of my life back. (Similar to seeing a sneak preview of this year’s boring “Robin Hood”, then realizing I’d missed “Lost”) Even in fail-up Hollywood you only get a certain number of strikes before you’re out (just ask Renny Harlin) so Shyamalan went with a cash-in “sure bet” – “Avatar: The Last Airbender”.

The only hope for this movie is counter-programming: Mom takes daughter to “Twilight”, son goes to see “Airbender”. In that best-case (but unlikely) scenario it could scare up $35-$40 million. Unlikely though – if you see a mom out doing something with a kid it’s always the daughter and a boy wouldn’t be caught dead near a “Twilight”-infused multiplex. So more likely it bombs and barely scraps past $20 million. But Shyamalan’s got his next movie lined up so his career will limp on. Sigh.

Toy Story 3 will continue to do well, say $30-$35 million for 2nd place. It will almost certainly become Pixar’s biggest hit ever, but probably won’t beat “Shrek 2”.

Rounding out the rest will be Adam Sandler’s latest “boy-man” comedy and “The Karate Kid”.

The big geek movie “Inception” is coming soon. No way in hell it does “Batman” numbers but it is the only remaining film of the summer I have any interest in.

Movies

Movie Prediction Madness: June 25th-27th

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We’re back again with more Movie Prediction Madness!

For this coming weekend, expect the good-but-overrated “Toy Story 3” to have another #1 weekend, probably well north of $50 million. Why these movies continue to get higher Tomatometers than much better films like “Wall-E” or “Up” is beyond me. Probably because they’re not risky like the ones I just mentioned.

The other 2 openers are a bit of a wild card. Firstly, I think “Knight and Day” will open well, despite the media’s strange, continued desire to convince us Tom Cruise is no longer a movie star. Guess what – he is, and more so than media darlings Brad Pitt or George Clooney will ever be. I’d be more worried about Cameron Diaz who, for whatever reason, is one of the highest paid actresses out there. She’s had more turds than Cruise ever will.

So say $40-$50 million on that one, and could have decent legs. Even the negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes give it a lot of compliments.

Then there’s “Grown Ups”, which I assume will be an entire movie about 45 year olds acting like children. While I’m sure this movie will be god-awful, it does have a “Couple Retreat” vibe going for it plus a bunch of washed up stars and the Mall Cop guy. So people will show up. Expect a bunch of nonsense, then a touchy feely ending where they confess to their wives / kids that they’re the greatest treasure of all or some BS like that.

$35-$45 million, possibly a close race with Tom Cruise for 2nd.

Tune in next week as I try and predict exactly how much more than $100 million Twilight will open at! Also, Last Airbender is going to bomb – big time.