Conan the Barbarian Screenwriter Shares What It Is Like to Have a Movie Flop

Posted on September 7, 2011

Everyone in Hollywood dreads having a movie flop at the box office. Sean Hood - one of the screenwriters for the Conan the Barbarian reboot - experienced this for himself last month. The sword & sorcery film, starring Jason Momoa, made just $10.5 million from 3,015 theaters during its opening weekend.

Hood shared what is like to have a movie bomb in an interesting post here on the Q&A website Quora. Mood says watching a movie flop at the box office is "devastating."

Hood compares a film's opening day to a political election night. He writes, "The Friday night of the release is like the Tuesday night of an election. 'Exit polls' are taken of people leaving the theater, and estimated box office numbers start leaking out in the afternoon, like early ballot returns. You are glued to your computer, clicking wildly over websites, chatting nonstop with peers, and calling anyone and everyone to find out what they've heard."

Hood also says box office results come in early just like election results. He says, "With a movie its much the same: trade magazines like Variety and Hollywood Reporter call the weekend winners and losers based on projections. That's when the reality of the loss sinks in, and you don't sleep the rest of the night."

To move on from the aftermath of a flop, Hood takes advice from his father's auditions for trumpet positions in major orchestras. If his father didn't make the cut he would get up the next morning and start practicing again.

Hood says, "So with my father's example in mind, here I sit, coffee cup steaming in its mug and dog asleep at my feet, starting my work for the day, revising yet another script, working out yet another pitch, thinking of the future (the next project, the next election) because I'm a screenwriter, and that's just what screenwriters do."