If you really liked a particular movie , and you ’re hop it made enough money to warrant a subsequence , then the wealth of box - office news can be puzzling . How can you tell when a movie ’s a bang ? We postulate the experts .
If you even pay up a little attention to what ’s going on in the amusement manufacture , it ’s easygoing to get snowed in with boxful office staff info that seems meaningful , but is hard to interpret . If a movie ’s number one in its chess opening weekend , does that have in mind it ’s mechanically a hit ? Or is the share drop between the first and second weekend the important phone number ? And so on . News outlets be given to report heap of box seat - power information without giving that much context of use .
As Phil Contrino , editor program of BoxOffice.com , says , “ The mainstream media is shamefaced of this . They look at the opening weekend — and instantly a moving picture is a winner or a nonstarter . ” But the truth is way more complicated than that . Sometimes , a picture can do well in its first weekend and then stumble in later weekends . Or a film can prepare “ legs , ” like Christopher Nolan ’s origination , and win a few weekend in a run-in .
And of course , gain and red are in the oculus of the observer — a lot of people were shockedwhen leaked fiscal statements showedthat Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had allegedly mislay $ 167 million , despite $ 967 million in orbicular revenue . Studio method of accounting , design to check that masses do n’t collect on back - end deals , is a wonder .
So how do you live if the box - spot graven image have smiled enough on your favourite moving picture that studios are potential to greenlight standardized films ?
The brusque reply is , it depends on a number of factors , but a convention of thumb seems to be that the film needs to make twice its production budget globally . For the longer solvent , read on .
So does a movie just have to make back its production budget, or is there more involved?
There ’s a lot more , although studio are loth to give out numbers . The studios rarely relinquish precise production budgets — and they ’re even more untrusting of revealing how much they spend on other stuff , like furtherance .
consort to Contrino , the Print & Advertising ( P&A ) toll of a picture can be incredibly high — for a small $ 20 million film , the promotional budget can be high than the production budget . That ’s because those films are often romantic comedies or kids ’ film , which are cheap to make but still need a lot of forwarding . For a moving picture which cost between $ 35 and $ 75 million to make , the P&A budget will most belike be at least half the product budget . And the numbers only go up with bigger films . “ If the studio spends a caboodle on the budget , they ’re give-up the ghost to need to protect that investment by advertising it to a great extent , ” read Contrino .
Case in point : Megamind price between $ 130 million and $ 145 to make ( reckon on what reservoir you believe . ) But the P&A budget , or the cost of promote the motion-picture show , is estimated to be an additional $ 65 million , according to Contrino .
Of course , the promotional expenses are different for each moving picture — Contrino point out that Fox did n’t seem to waste much money further Gulliver ’s Travels , once it was light they had a flop on their hands . You did n’t see that many TV ads for Jack Black ’s Swiftian odyssey . So Gulliver did n’t lose as much money as it could have .
And in some cases , a studio will actually have less money at bet than the film ’s production budget — sometimes , the distributer will just evolve an already - made celluloid for a modest fee , plus selling costs , say Gitesh Pandya with BoxOfficeGuru.com . In those caseful , the studio can make a profit even if the flick does n’t make back its product budget .
Is it true that studios get a bigger cut of the revenue from the opening weekend?
You might have noticed that studios are pushing a wad harder lately to make a motion picture as heavy a hit as potential in its opening weekend . And films tend to open on more screens right forth — a typical handsome motion-picture show will open on 4,000 screens , or else of the hundreds of screen it would have opened on in the 1980s .
And it used to be straight across the board that the opening weekend was when the biggest percentage of profits went to the studio . In the yesteryear , studio “ solid - armed exhibitors into these front - load deals , wherein the overpowering majority of the gap weekend take lead to the studio , ” says David Mumpower with Box Office Prophets . “ As much as 90 % of that revenue is theirs . ” The dramaturgy only make money by selling “ overpriced snacks ” to audiences during that first hebdomad — but in the following weeks , the theater ’s cut of meat hold out up . Eventually , by the fourth workweek , the studio apartment ’s cut has decrease to around 52 per centum in most typesetter’s case .
But after a bunch of theater chainsdeclaredbankruptcyin the other 2000s , these frontloaded plenty started to fall out of mode , says Doug Stone with BoxOfficeAnalyst.com .
now , with many of the bigger Hollywood blockbuster , the theater chains just get a received cut of the whole revenue , regardless of which weekend it comes in .
So generally, how much of the domestic box office revenue goes to the studios?
The percentage of taxation that the exhibitor take in depends on the item-by-item contract for that film — which in bend bet on how much muscle the electrical distributor has , according to Stone .
These deals often protect the theaters from movies that bomb at the corner office by make the theaters a bigger cut of those moving picture . So if a film only makes $ 10 million at the box office , the distributor will get only 45 percent of that money . But if a photographic film make $ 300 million at the box office , then the distributor scram up to 60 percent of that money .
you’re able to actually see at the security measures filing for the prominent field of operations chains , to look at how much of their ticket tax income go back to the studios , taper out Stone . So for example , the recent quarterly filing by Cinemark Holdings , shows that 54.5 percent of its ticket revenues conk out to the distributer . So as a ballpark figure , studio in general take in around 50 - 55 percent of U.S. box office money .
Is it better if a movie makes more of its revenue in the U.S.?
The highest visibility example of a cinema that bombed in the U.S. but made wads of money abroad was The Chronicles of Narnia : Voyage of the Dawn Treader , which made only about $ 100 million domestically but made about $ 270 million oversea . And a similar thing happened with the old Narnia movie , Prince Caspian . Another liberal film that made way more money overseas than domestically was Terminator Salvation .
So if a film does unbelievably well abroad but flops in the U.S. , does that make it a hit ? As with everything else to do with box agency , the answer is “ it bet . ” But generally , domesticated tax income seems to be be better for studio than oversea taxation , because the studios take a bigger cut of domestic revenue .
According to the ledger The Hollywood Economist by Edward Jay Epstein , studios take in about 40 pct of the tax income from overseas release — and after expenses , they ’re lucky if they take in 15 percentage of that turn .
Domestic revenue just counts for a lot more than abroad revenue , says David Mumpower with Box Office Prophets :
The intellect for this is simple . roll up revenues abroad is a trickier suggestion since the dollar fluctuates against alien currencies . There are also duty from these regime in place for keep as much money as possible from leaving their countries and go abroad , which is an apprehensible practice . While the globose conglomerate such as Fox , Disney and Time - Warner that be given major Hollywood studios can fasten sweetheart deals with various local politics , it does n’t pass for each film . As such , international box government agency revenue is much less reliable than in North America .
But still , overseas box bureau does subject , more and more . And stars who have a Brobdingnagian ball-shaped following are more likely to open a moving picture than ones who are only famous in the U.S. — just take care at the fact that the world - famous Tom Cruise is still star in movies , despite his on-going backlash in North America . Mumpower points out that Cruise ’s Knight and Day only made about $ 76 million in the U.S. , against a production budget of $ 117 million . But since Knight and Day made $ 262 million overseas , luck are it will end up being profitable once home - television revenues are factored in .
Adds Mumpower :
A lurid telephone number of 2010 spill did well abroad than in North America , which make horse sense when we deliberate population number . It ’s just a comparatively newfangled phenomenon for the industriousness . Avatar ’s performance is a great demonstration of global expansion . It earned $ 760.5 million domestically , which is ( almost ) a drop cloth in the bucketful compare to the $ 2.02 billion it accrued in international box post . Only 27 % ( i.e. roughly a quarter ) of Avatar ’s box office was realize in North America . That ’s how of import the global exposure has become to Hollywood studios .
Isn’t it true that most of the money is in DVD sales and cable TV airings now?
“ videodisc lease and sales can tack on up to $ 60-$100 mil for a big title and television rights , product , and many other avenues can generate income , ” says Chad Hartigan , a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations .
And the studios get a much freehanded cut of DVD revenues than they do of theatrical revenues , because the retailer are n’t as “ meaning of a middle valet ” as the theater proprietor , according to Paul Dergarabedian , Chief Executive of Hollywood.com ’s Box Office division . There are a lot of cost that go into running a movie theater , and showing movies is all the movie theatre does — unlike most places where videodisc are sell .
There are some genre of flick that do especially well on DVD — like horror films , which are often cheaper to make than other genres to begin with , says Dergarabedian . A repugnance flick might or might not erupt even at the theaters , but it ’s certain to make lots more money when it hits DVD .
But actually , the trend towards studio count on DVD sales may have peaked already — in 2009 , for the first clock time in a X , theatrical boxwood office taxation was bragging than home - video recording tax revenue , says BoxOfficeAnalysts ’ Stone . And this seems to be go forward into 2010 . Perhaps because of piracy or the popularity of Netflix , DVD cut-rate sale are n’t retain yard with ticket sales any more . Says Stone , “ Studios can no longer rely on as robust an ancillary market to prop up a loser at the box authority . ”
That ’s one grounds why you ’re hearing so much about 3 - D — those higher ticket toll are a style to stop up the revenue hole from disappointing DVD sale . And studios are going to start investigating premium TV - on - requirement services more , as another way to shore up up their earnings , says Stone .
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