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Haven't posted since I sold out my remaining shares last year and just checked in to see what's happening. Seems everyone is intent on figuring out if this was a scam or not. That kind of misses the point. Whether Ray, Brad and whoever were honestly trying to create a product or not, they are massively incompetent either way.
I got in this stock back when it was down to these levels over 6 years ago. They've been trumpeting this technology for almost that long. If they haven't delivered yet, what possible reason could anyone give for believing they will in the future.
If you want to play this as a penny stock that will certainly move up and down on rumors, more power to you. You will probably make some money.
If you actually believe these idiots will ever produce anything of value, you really shouldn't be trusted to invest your own money. IMO
Sadly, were that to happen here, it would only get NV to about $2 still a shadow of what it was.
I haven't posted much in a long time and this is probably the last as I sold out my remaining shares a couple of weeks ago. My final decision came after seeing a demo of WiMax technology.
I don't think it matters anymore if management is lying/exagerating/whatever. The time for their technology has passed. Even if they were ready to roll out product today, the lifespan and potential upside is so much more limited than when they first started making promises four years ago that I just felt like it was time to sell. It was easier for me since I still made a profit even at these prices having been in this since NV was a 3D film company (anyone remember those days).
It was really only greed and wishful thinking that kept me in as long as I was since NV has never, ever delivered on a single promise in four years. I take that back, they promised to cut my shares by 75% which they did, in fact, do. Ray has personally lied to me on at least three occaisions over the years and I still stupidly chased after the high point the stock hit before the bubble burst.
Anyway, all of that now seems moot given the new technologies coming down the line. (And I'm not saying WiMax is the be-all and end-all so don't bother listing it's limitations versus NV's vaporware. I'm saying it's a sample of a variety of applications that will all render NV's best case scenario obsolelte.)
Good luck to anyone still around.
Just my opinions for what they're worth and since I've lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of potential profit on this stock my opinions probably aren't worth much.
That would be standard in the festival world. There might be some kind of prize money but I'm not familiar with Tribeca to know for sure. In any case, it wouldn't amount to anything significant.
Excel, The university route has possiblities but there are a couple of potential problems. One, the more you place the film in university theaters, there is a chance you are cutting in to the market a distributor would want to tap. Keep in mind, this is not ever going to go out with a mainstream release on 2,200 theaters like a studio movie does. If you've already hit some of the niche markets, that leaves less for a distributor to take advantage of. Obviously, there's a balancing act here between raising interest and oversaturating.
Even if you try some of the creative marketing approaches you suggest, it takes time and manpower. You either have to know or research the contacts at each college and local media outlet. I guess Ray, Dana and the film guys could take this on if they're willing to do it for free but if not, we're back to the idea of spending more money.
You're right about the hesitancy on their part to sign a deal for less than they think it's worth, particuliarly since my understanding is that New Line really screwed Bruce Brown on Endless Summer 2, but as I've said before, this company makes (or wants to make) semiconductors, not movies. If they can even get their investment back and plow it back into their primary business, I say do it.
Excel, what you're describing is called four walling (as in you rent the four walls of the theater for a set price then keep all the box office). While it has been done by Brown and Miller, a number of circumstances make it more difficult now. First, the days of individually owned, neighborhood theaters are largely over. The upside is that there is a glut of screen space right now however, to get on those screens you are dealing with major corporations who have little interest in supporting four walling.
Another issue is that it will cost a lot of money up front to make money. Not only do you have to pay for the theater, you have to pay the marketting expenses. These days, marketing costs as much or more than production. This film certainly has a built in audience but reaching that audience will cost money we don't have.
Finally, the natural time to four wall a surf film is summer. That's the toughtest time to get screen space. Blockbuster films fight to hold screens for more than a couple of weeks. My recollection is that Bruce Brown hasn't really done any four walling for a long time. Back to the days before the summer blockbuster. Warren Miller's natural market is the winter when you get a lot a junk film that the studio is just dumping.
Just because it's been 45 days doesn't mean deals aren't being discussed. The last distribution deal I was involved with took almost 4 months to finalize. I have a friend who just spent 9 months before closing a deal.
There's a writer who I think's named Tom Freedman who makes a very compelling case for overthrowing Sadaam while at the same time making a very good case that the whole process was handled very badly by the administration. It will be interesting to see just how committed they are to sustaining an Iraqi democracy given that I just read that their current budget request includes no money at all for that same process in Afghanistan.
That said, I hate it when this board wanders far astray of its mission so I'll end my part in this digression with the hope that the whole thing gets wrapped up with as little loss of life (on both sides) as possible.
Just a couple of additions to the Bush's CV. He got went to Harvard for an MBA after being rejected by University of Texas' law school. And, after racking up all those impressive election stats, he went on in 2000 to lose by over half a million votes.
If you are going to post an article, please look into some of the more nuanced and interesting writings of people like David Brooks or Bill Kristol. They make a much better argument in favor of your positions.
Finally, I've always been curious about something. The article mentions: "Because an honest, God-fearing Republican sits in the White House" Why should a leader (or anyone) fear God? Love, Honor and Respect make sense to me. But fearing, I don't get.
Elder,
If you know of a mutual fund that's been returning anything near 10% lately, I'd love to hear about that. One of the things that makes it easier to wait on NV is that every other investment I've got has been junk the past couple years.
The 18 million figure was from another person's earlier post. They had an estimate of total cost for chip development and were extrapolating how much the film would need to gross in order to raise those funds. I simply gave some more information about how the process works and, most importantly, how long it takes.
To give you a concrete example, I did a project in partnership with MGM. Each time a unit is sold, the distributor takes 90 days to report and pay MGM. They then take another 90 days to pay me my share. That's pretty standard in the entertainment business and I'm actually thrilled because so far they've actually been paying me what they owe, albeit slowly. I could tell you lots of stories about accounts receivables that never get paid. Always go for cash in hand in the entertainment business.
I agree completely. They are no longer a media company so get what you can from that asset but get it quickly.
I know there was moderate interest in the project before it was even made. If it came out as well as I've heard it did, I wouldn't be surprised to see offers between 5 and 10 million for an outright buy. I'd be very surprised to see any thing higher than that.
I would also not be surprised to see an advance against royalties of maybe 1 to 2 million though I would bet on the low side. In the long run, this would be the more profitable route but I think NV would do well to take what they can get now and focus on Embarq because that would be even more profitable than anything they'd ever make on this movie.
Not to be the bearer of bad news but I work in the film business and I think you should know a few more numbers. If we need 18 million in film revenue to cover development, the movie needs to make a LOT more than 18 million for us to clear that much. A distributor is going to take anywhere from 25 to 50% plus, rule of thumb is that theaters get about half of ticket sales. That's gone down lately but this isn't going to be a film where NV can necessarily cut the greatest deal in the world.
So, unfortunately, for 18 million to funnel down to NV you should count on a box office of at least 50 million. Potentially doable based on the earlier Endless Summer movies. Next bad news is that even if it opened Friday, money probably wouldn't flow for 90 to 180 days.
I think this stands to make money over a period of years once it hits video and such but the only quick way to see cash is to sell the film and all it's future revenue for a percentage of what it might ultimately be worth. Same principle as selling a lottery payout or structured settlement if you need cash imediately.
While I agree about the film sale, I'm not sure the figures for a prototype are as low as you imagine. Particuliarly when you add in the cost of support (i.e. personel). I think your main point is still vaild but I would expect that the cost of building and servicing a prototype would be in the tens of thousands per unit. Still, something they should be able to handle but not an inconsequential amount.
Not to sound negative about the movie but even if a distribution agreement were signed today, I wouldn't expect revenues for months.
I work in film and tv and the lag on payments boggles the imagination. Plus, I can't imagine anyone's planning on releasing this during the fall "Oscar" movie time. It would also seem a little weird to release a surf movie in the winter.
Now all that said, I think this movie stands to make a pile of money over the next couple of years. I've actually seen the numbers from the first two endless summers and they were both very profitable for a very long time. Despite New Line's best efforts to tell Bruce Brown that the sequel never made money.
I think the biggest reason there's no rush to buy into this stock is that almost no one out there has the stomach for speculative investing after the past year.
To be honest, if I weren't already invested, I'd probably be sitting on the sidelines until there were further tests and an explanation of expected revenues. As it is, there's no way I'm could lower my cost basis so I figure I might as well wait and see what happens.
Why would this be a "surprise" since they are announcing the changeover more than two months before it happens. If they had announced that Cooper had suddenly and unexpectedly taken over today, it would demonstrate instability but this seems like an orderly transition to an exec with more experience.
While I agree that current management has made more than their fair share of mistakes, I don't think this is one of them.
O/T Haven't posted over here yet but just wanted to thank you guys for setting up a board without all the junk at RB.
Looks like things are finally happening.