Barnack

Equalizer had a 73.126m gross budget, just below 50m after Denzel and the rest of the cast paycheck of 24m, but you are right for the around 35m to work with below the line. Fuqua directing fee is not cheap either (around 4m + perks), script never cheap and close to 2m and big producers on a studio movie (3.5m). Above The Line: $36,495,794 Below The Line: $36,630,423 TOTAL DIRECT COST: $73,126,217 Almost 200 million on a 55 mill budget is huge by Denzel standards. And it's also his third biggest film in the last ten years. Net budget was 63m, they expected to do a nice 40m profits at that 190m WW performance (31m for the studio, 9m for the village roadshow / lone star that financed half of it). That is a really nice margin of profit, but also because of Denzel it was at a very low risk level, looking at the number of player involved in the sequel: Production Companies Columbia Pictures Escape Artists Fuqua Films Lonetree Entertainment Mace Neufeld Productions Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) Probably still at a very low risk level for everyone here, they know there is almost no chance for a breakout, but chance are good for again doing a nice 15% ROI with a very slim almost nill chance to flop, easy greenlight imo.

Italy and Japan also... $41.2M Overseas Weekend Estimate Rampage did around 60m for the same markets with 2.7x legs in them. If Skyscraper play similarly overall, it would do around 226m intl, if that 41.2m oversea weekend hold it look like really close to the dbo performance vs Rampage OW (30% drop). If it does 70-75m dbo, could still get really close to 300m, the China heavy nature of it with 0 access to the ancillary market there could be an issue at those level too.

O8 legs are being a big win I would say, could have easily be a bit under 3.0 and it will be significantly above that.

I think one difference is they seem to have got Ant Man 2 budget because of the UK cgi work, Logan because of Louisiana production, while they have no idea of the Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman budget and many other blockbusters. But yes, it is not a small budget affair, but it is not doing small box office either.

Apparently it is not. https://deadline.com/2018/07/dwayne-johnson-skyscraper-ant-man-and-the-wasp-hotel-transylvania-3-weekend-box-office-1202426089/ Even with Wanda’s Legendary Entertainment involved here covering 50% of the reported $125M production cost, they may have assisted in getting more movie screens in the Middle Kingdom, but I’m informed that Skyscraper is considered a U.S. production and will only see around 25% of its China B.O., and no downstream ancillaries.

They did it for a reason too, I would imagine local are less direct competition than Hollywood option are to each others.

Because it already made over 200m with all of those (many major) to open, first ant man bo in those marker: Belgium (1.24m) 18 July 2018 France (13.3) 18 July 2018 Netherlands (1.85m) 18 July 2018 Germany (5.9m) 26 July 2018 Hungary 26 July 2018 UK (25.2) 3 August 2018 Ireland 3 August 2018 Poland (1.3) 3 August 2018 Italy (5.29) 14 August 2018 Portugal (0.8) 15 August 2018 Japan (9.67) 31 August 2018 And China (105m) still floating, but that 170m of market for the previous entry yet to open with and other 120m in legs there. It could get close to 600m with a 162m budget, how making more than making 3.5 time a big budget not a big success, let alone starting to call word like flop.....

They could also try to make a Rub&Tug movie and cast a male-trans actor into the role and financing it with crowd sourcing, and they do not need to make it with that script if they cannot buy it. It is not the 40-50s anymore, you do not need studio's to make a movie, why not make the movie they want to see and help put a trans actor on the map, like they wish someone else do ? They seem to be a big number of people wanting this to happen, even some in the industry did spoke and would know how to get a project going. Maybe some first step could be accelerated like that, investor want a proof a concept, a comparable that worked well to be reassured.

There is a difference between a very famous figure for audience vs a relative total unknown, because if you compare how different the Rub&Tug real life person with Johansson your example would not be far fetch otherwise. Stuff like you describe does happen in theater, for example they hired a black actress to play Joan of Arc (or Hermione in Harry Potter) : http://broadwayblack.com/first-look-condola-rashad-joan-of-arc-racist-upset/ Theater has a long history of very inexact casting (a bit like rest of the world in movies that does not have Hollywood budget). Just to be sure if a director wanted to do a movie in which George Washington was played by Oprah would you be closed to it and asking online for it to not happen ? Would make me curious imo (but I am not american, so does not count, impossible for me to shocked by founding father representation in a movie)

Like someone said I do not want to watch Steve McQueen play some shy medieval priest, the high star power being is star presence is not much of an issue, it is exactly what you want, Tom Hanks played Tom Hanks in a lot of successful movies, Bullock played the character that star stiff and learn to get loose many many time. From time to time inserting something different is good and maybe more importantly the chance to play that character in different type of movies/setting. Johnson playing it in something like Rampage and this in that sense is a really good idea. I imagine it would make no sense for a pro wrestler / movie star to be natural (or what that would mean in 2018 anyway...), but it is not a Arnold/Hogan 80s steroid era either, more advance technology and technic and unlike an Arnold does not need to do those drastic water/fat lost for competition every year, he should age more gracefully, they can take massive intake of steam cell to help recuperation and aging now and other advance stuff.

The Meyerowitz stories isn't bad at all. And WaterBoy/Happy gilmore didn't age that badly either.

McQuarrie did told in a podcast that they were working late on Edge of Tomorrow Script and a one point Cruise asking him, hey do you want to direct the next Mission Impossible movie, he responded sure, Cruise took is phone to call Paramount and leaved the room came back 15 minute later and said it was done. I do not think anything really compare that I can think of no, if we take Die hard almost no movie of that franchise were Die Hard movie, but script studio owned and changed the character name, put a little bit of references and tagged it Die Hard (except for the very last one).

Could even get crowdfunded, instead of doing it for Super trooper 2 and Veronica Mars, if really people care with the awareness the project has, why not. You just need 100k people caring for only $1000 to get a 100m production movie going.... a 20m one should not be too hard. And if you do not even have 100,000 people that care for just $200, that make it a bit of a up media false controversy.

I am curious if it achieved the different higher revenue retention rate and considered a co-production, I think Pacific Rim 2 didn't qualify, it is not just being financed by Chinese company that matter, but how much of the cast&crew/spending was made in china also I think. But yeah it could easily have an over 100m in China type of performance (good release date and during an Hollywood black out so no direct competition) and turn this around.

It is still a 20m+ openner, still not easy at all to do with a non-ip, non sequel movie for a star that can sell intl and could still easily do something like 22.5m * 3.1 / .26 = 268m, achieving to more than double the $129m budget. When that is your "lows", thing are going quite well.

That was a somewhat powerful director too and that was 6 year's ago and that needed to share the risk among all those player getting on board over a very long development process: Production companies Summit Entertainment Regency Enterprises River Road Entertainment Plan B Entertainment New Regency Productions Film4 Productions Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures (North America) Lionsgate / Summit Entertainment (International) to get made. Yes if a Pitt type of producer get on board with a director/subject that give it really good Oscar chance, with a big assembled supporting cast (Fassbender, Cumberbatch, Giamatti, Pitt cameo) it can happen. But that is far from being common, just as an exercice, look at all the non-genre / sequel / IP movie of 2017 with a 25-35 small budget type, you will see a lot of star powers (irrelevant that if it does really matter to have them or not in actual movie success at the box office, they still seem needed no get project going and financed). Ejiofor while being a unknown to a lot of the public had a good theater career and was an golden globe nominee, Olivier winner, he could still inspire confidence to investor that is performance and the day to day work of the lead of a major production would not be any issue or adding cost.

In that price range (that could be hard to get out of, considering period setting and mob scope), with that type of director and not a IP/or a genre you can pre-sales (like horror, buddy comedy, etc...) there is almost no movie with unknown actor in the lead released. At least I did try to look for one in 2017-2018, a 25-35m production with a unknown actor in the lead and I think I didn't find any. Do you some example in mind ?

Of that size and longevity maybe ? Candidate: Die Hard and Bruce ? They never did anything without him on that I think. Bevery Hills cop and Eddy Murphy ? Jerry Bruckheimer was not on the third one.

Everyone that recently bought the DVD at the minimum: https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Mary-Poppins#tab=video-sales 4/29/2018 29 7,783 9,339,342 $72,743 $178,280,999 1,049

I imagine if that is not a bit of a dig here, to the danger about asking for good representation before representation was even achieved first. Placing in there some warning that if social media create landmine to approach those stories they will be told simply less and less if a significant amount of money is needed, people just not interested into taking the chance.

I would have thought at least 80m for HT3 (first one was a bit over 100m second one around 85m) HT 2 was a 35/65 dbo/intl type of breakdown and an over 3.5 legs 40-42 if that budget is only $65m that would be great 40 * 3.5 / .3 = 466m WW on a 65m budget.

I would be curious under which special category they could have possibly find a way to say it if it was not an outright lie.

Hum Besson 5th element share also a lot with Wonder Woman.

He was good in pain&Gain and there will be something there to work with at some point for sure. Yeah many predict a good director will make a good movie with a good performance when he start to crack (using the movie star personae fully). I saw David Poland proposal on twitter of a Jean Claude Van Damn JVCD type movie, were the Rock wrestler persona is the real human and Dwayne Johnson is a character he invented to make money from the movie business. I can see someone like Paul Thomas Anderson coming with something a la Punch Drunk Love that fully use him and even if he does the exact same usual (Sandler was pretty much doing the exact same performance than he always do) it will be great in that context.

It will not necessarily increase so much, first one made, first one made around 170m in 2018 dollar, it could open at 55m and still actually decrease. It will be more frontloaded.