Intergalactic Ping Pong

One article was from 2013. The other was from 2014. So perhaps it doesn't apply to Star Wars. But it would have applied to Avatar.

Exactly. Theaters want leggy movies. Studios want opening weekend behemoths. Who do I root for? The studios of course. The studios/distribs are the ones who will be bringing film-goers new content to enjoy. In fact, the theaters have a vested interest in the studios' continued success, as they can only sell their premium soda and candy to the people who walk through the door. People only come through that door in high numbers if the studios are releasing movies that the GA wants to see.

Box office numbers are interesting to track over their respective runs. But for the studios/distributors, they profit far more off a movie that makes its money upfront. Because they get a much larger share of the profits for the first couple weeks. "The studios (for these bigger films, we'll now assume the studios are the distributors) take a higher percentage of the box office gross in the first and second week. It fluctuates, but we'll generalize and say that they take 80% of the box office take with theaters taking just 20%. Once the third week roles around, the studios take less. In this case we'll say 60%. Theaters take 40%. With each week after that the theater take raises while the studio take decreases, until a certain agreed point." - Ken Miyamoto, Produced screenwriter, former Sony Pictures script reader/story analyst So for Star Wars: TFA, the studios/distrib could have made $521.5 million off of its $652 million gross through its first two weeks. For its third week, the studios could have made about $71 million from its $118.4 million earnings. The studio/distrib have already earned $591.5 million under these conditions. Now let's compare that with a slow burn movie such as Avatar. Avatar made $283.6 million in its first two weeks. The studio/distrib could have earned around $226.9 million from that. And if we take the rest of its earnings and give it the 60/40 split for all of it (which is giving it a more than fair shake according to the info above), the studio/distrib would earn $286.1 million off of the remaining $476.9 million. So, in total, the studio/distrib for Avatar could have earned $513 million from it's entire run ($760 mill). Given the same factors, Star Wars could have earned Disney/distribs $591.5 million off of its first $770 million made in theaters. And it will make the studio/distrib even more (albeit at a much lower percentage of return) off of the remainder of its run. Let's say it hits $920 million. If we say the studio and theaters split this remainder 50/50, then that would be an additional $75 million to the studio/distrib. So while for some of us, these continuing numbers are interesting, for the studio/distrib they are much happier when their movies open huge and bring in alot of money in their first few weeks, because more of that money goes to them. P.S. Based on a number of other articles I read, the split gets much worse than the 60/40 I allotted to Avatar. In some cases by the 5th weekend a movie will be 25/75, with the 75 going to the theaters and it will remain that way or go even lower to 20/80. TL;DR Studios make more money off of movies that open big vs movies that earn their grosses slowly.

The Revenant is doing amazing. It was truly a beautifully shot film. That being said, someone needs to make a GIF and replace the bear in the attack scene with Winnie the Pooh. It just needs to happen.

I used to post all the time on boxofficemojo before the community was closed down. Thanks IMDB! I missed the memo when this site was made. I discovered it a few months ago and I've been reading and keeping track of news on here. So much insight to be gained. People pull resources and content from every direction. I remember when there was hardly any information on China's box office and we were lucky to get weekly updates. Now people have the inside info, hour by hour. This was a fantastic post, Baumer and it is why I decided to go ahead and finally create an account. I couldn't agree more. There have been a few truly amazing box office runs over the last 40 years. Star Wars: ANH, ET, Titanic, Avatar and Star Wars: TFA. Each was special in it's own way. Each had factors that worked for it. And some had factors that worked against it. Personally, I laughed when a friend predicted this past fall that TFA would make more than what Jurassic World was able to make. I figured people would be less forgiving of the disaster that was, IMO, the prequels. I figured if this one was really good, then SW: VIII would see some huge numbers. The Batman effect, I'll call it. Batman & Robin put Batman on life support, Batman Begins got the franchise back on its feet and TDK was the adrenaline shot. I figured something similar would happen here, only with better numbers. Maybe $500 million domestic and $1 billion international. But I was way off and I am very happy to be so far off. The one thing I think is interesting is how people want to measure international box office like it is apples to apples. I see people mentioning offhand how strong the dollar is and how this is effecting box office returns in different countries. But then people go back to trying compare Star Wars to another film or two that benefited from a far different international economic climate. For instance, in 2009, the dollar was weak by any measure vs a number of foreign currencies. Now the dollar is very strong. And China just had a significant drop in their economy just this month. These are not apple to apple comparisons. Each of the movies I mentioned and probably a couple others I forgot to mention had very interesting box office runs and are kings of their respective times. Because one had a better domestic gross than the others doesn't invalidate anyone's fandom of the others. Because the others had bigger international grosses doesn't change my feelings about this new Star Wars and what is to come with the franchise.