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Interview with the RiffTrax GuysChris Ford at Diffuser.fm interviews Mike, Kevin and Bill.
21 Replies to “Interview with the RiffTrax Guys”Commenting at Satellite News
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Does anyone know if they will be coming back to Nashville this year?
I think the Godzilla show on August 14 is supposed to be in Nashville. They haven’t announced the site for the live Anaconda show yet.
Their comments about the possible reboot are interesting, and lay to test any rumors of their involvement.
And this is just me, but if Kevin isn’t back as Tom, then Joel should just make all new bots for this thing. Though I would welcome a visit to the new SOL from Trace as Crow or Joel as Joel Robinson.
Hey, I still like building model kits! Not in my Mom’s basement though.
I have to agree with Mike and Kevin on this one. As much as I love MST, it feels done to me. Let it lie.
“Speaking to Wired, Joel Hodgson mentioned that he’d consider revisiting ‘MST3K.’ Is that something you’d consider?
Bill Corbett: It would depend completely on the arrangement. I loved doing ‘MST3K,’ was honored to be part of such a great sh”ow and had a wonderful time during my years there. But the owners of the show cut me off as soon as it was over. Haven’t made a cent from it since I filmed my last show in 1999, and all attempts to change that arrangement have been rejected. A few attempts to revive ‘MST3K’ have already failed because of such issues. So I’d be skeptical.”
Wow…….how often do we ‘commoners’ get the unvarnished truth about the business side of MST3K these days from ANY former cast/crew member??? Fascinating!!! ;-)
From what I understand, nobody but Joel and Jim have made a dime off the show since ’99. Not that they’re swimming through mountains of cash Scrooge McDuck style…
Honestly, I don’t really need a reboot. An occasional reunion show would be fun, I think. It could be a smart way of taking advantage of people’s nostalgia and the uptick of interest thanks to CT, RT and the anniversary. Either that or an annual Turkey Day online curated by various cast members.
But considering Joel’s tendency to get bored easily, a new MST3k solely led by him may not last too long. He’d have to partner up with some money people (like Mike did with Legend Films at RT’s beginning) to ensure that the show can get up and running, and as CT proved, going completely off the grid probably isn’t the best path to success.
Well guys just read the interview and it looks like that is that and I’m not a big fan of the word “reboot” call me “out of touch” or whatever, I’d want the old MST3K I know and love…keep circulating the tapes.
The guys’ thoughts about the MST3K reboot should surprise no one. As Mike said, they’ve been working hard at this for seven years, buying their own stake in Rifftrax and earning the right to call their own shots and make their own money off their own work. I’m sure there’s an element of nostalgia and love for the old show for them but come on – why would they jump ship to some other enterprise where they would be demoted to hired hands, paid whatever Jim and Joel deemed fit to serve someone else’s IP? There doesn’t seem to be much precedent of people getting a piece of the actual pie when it comes to Best Brains – what’s the incentive for Mike, Kevin and Bill when they find what they’re doing with Rifftrax so rewarding?
Besides, I think it’s been intimated that the cast of the revival will be new faces, so it’s not like this really impacts anything. Any old-timers that join Joel in this endeavor will likely be doing so in the confines of the writers room. If we suppose that will include the rest of the Cinematic Titanic folks, or some mixture of CT alumni and new blood, that’s still a full house.
I don’t blame them for not wanting to do another round of MST3K. Rifftrax is going well for them.
What was sad to know is the possibility that people besides Jim and Joel aren’t getting any residuals from the show. Who knows exactly what the ownership situation is? I admit I forgot.
As much as I love MST3K — and that would be almost up there on par with my kids and hubby — I don’t want to see it revived or rebooted or whatever you’d call it. Sometimes part of what makes something so special is that it was finite.
Love MST3K for what it was and Rifftrax for what it is. It’s enough.
If Joel would consider rebooting MST, I will be there with bells and whistles on day 1. If Joel thinks it can work, and sets about making it work, I would love to see the results. I look at it this way….we,the common man, do not/can not visualize what Joel would come up with. We would have to wait and see. It seems logical that it would not be a zerox copy of the initial series , but, isn’t there the possibility it will be even better? Of course there is, yet no one seems to be thinking that. If Joel goes about creating a updated MST, you know…you KNOW, he’s not going to ship it out unless it is AS good,IF NOT better than the original series. You know that. Yet, no one seems to think that. And once it comes out and you LOVE it, you’ll be forgetting ALL about your misgivings so clearly speculated with this post. I want Joel to know right here and now that I…that WE, would LOVE to see what he would come up with.
Come on people. How about a little support?!
I’m in favor of Joel and the rest of Cinematic Titanic continuing to riff movies and sell DVDs.
What I am not in favor of is a reboot of MST3K. It ended, it was sad but then we had Film Crew and Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic. It was like getting MST3K back only it was new and different but still the same.
Now with talk of some kind of reboot I have conflicting feelings about it, I would love to have more riffing from camp Joel but I don’t want them to mess with success and kill the golden goose that is our memories of MST3K and that weird coolness it has.
I think what should happen is they do something similar to MST3K but keep it original like the earlier Cinematic Titanic DVDs before the switch to recorded live shows. The concept always looked better in a television style format, the live versions just can’t compete with the studio versions, the jokes are delivered better, the audio quality is better, and it’s just overall more entertaining.
It’s never been any secret that only Jim and Joel were earning anything off MST3K.
I would love to see a reboot, as long as it’s Joel and Trace involved. Maybe Josh. But CT failed to me because there were too many people.
Anyway, if they could reboot Battlestar Galactica twice (one upcoming), why not MST3K once?
If the cast isn’t getting royalties from MST3K I don’t feel nearly as good about buying all of the DVD sets. When I bought a set I felt good that I was contributing to the folks I loved on the show. If only Jim and Joel got paid I feel like a dupe.
I do, however, feel much better about buying so many RiffTrax movies and attending their simulcast shows. I only bought three CT movies, and of them only one (Alien Factor LIVE) was good. Alien Factor, in my opinion, is as good as some of the best MST3K episodes, and makes a great triple-feature with RiffTrax’s Galaxy Invader and the MST classic Pod People.
“From what I understand, nobody but Joel and Jim have made a dime off the show since ’99. Not that they’re swimming through mountains of cash Scrooge McDuck style…”
Hmmmm…….not sure that I completely agree with the ‘not swimming through mountains of cash’ part of it.
Think about it, the owners of MST3K (i.e., Jim Mallon and Joel Hodgson) will soon be releasing their 30th dvd box set (thanks to SHOUT! Factory, and before that, Rhino Home Video), most of which have been sold at PREMIUM prices (anywhere from (roughly) $30 to $60 (retail) PER COPY), so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that with tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of copies sold, the boys are raking in some SERIOUS change, even after SHOUT! takes their cut.
While they may not be swimming through their profits, I would be willing to bet they’re at least WADING through some of it…. ;-)
I know all of us here feel deep down in our hearts that Joel and the Brains were The Beatles of television, but there’s a reason MST3k is always on those lists of cult classics. Nobody was ever going to get rich making a puppet show on cable TV, no matter how brilliant it was. And I don’t think Save Ferris’ math holds up to scrutiny. Remember, they have to license most of the movies in those DVD releases, and as RiffTrax’s Kickstarter campaign has shown, even crummy movies don’t come cheap.
I would be shocked if hundreds of thousands of copies sold, especially in the current market where physical media sales are dropping like a rock.
I’d guess 10 -singular – thousand is closer than 10s of thousands. But I’m a pessimist sometimes.
I always assumed that Shout! had to give the lion’s share to the movies’ rights holders and Jim and Joel got a small cut of the sales. And while the show will certainly miss the RT3, it makes sense for them to keep going with their thing. They’re doing what they want for the most part and aren’t getting cut out of future sales and, to be blunt, more MST3k could pull sales away from them. Personally I’m ok with it all and look forward to what both camps have in store for us!