How HV sales used to turn big box office hits into massive box office GIANTS

[fastclock]

So they only count those movies made over $150M in DOM?

The Maze Runner, Lucy and Fault in Our Stars definitely made more than Divergent.

The dom and foreign releasing fees for these movies might be as big as the ones in the list, about $100-150m. That would significantly cut the profit despite of the low production budgets. But yeah, it is strange that they ignore these movies.

I also wonder the profit structure for mid range movies like "the book of life" or the boxtrolls

[kowhite]

 

I'm just wondering, how did they get the 'final' ww BO number for Big Hero 6?

 

That $400m international without China seems very wrong

 

How the DVDs,... sales?

 

Do they even have actual numbers or only calculate them out of average datas of the market?

 

Having seen more of these...

 

I feel pretty safe saying they've got a savvy person who understands the dynamics of the industry and pretty decent insight.

 

But, they don't have the actual numbers. And these are long range forecasts, not actual money to date.

[terrestrial]

Having seen more of these...

 

I feel pretty safe saying they've got a savvy person who understands the dynamics of the industry and pretty decent insight.

 

But, they don't have the actual numbers. And these are long range forecasts, not actual money to date.

 

 

Sadly mixed with some sloppy work IMHO, see already known higher - then filled in - gained numbers.

 

It is nice for a general feel of the mindset 'behind' the creation, but a bit more decleration on the how/why and more effort to re-check actual numbers would have made it (way) more then only 'nice'. They did hinted at it, but IMHO far too less.

 

Thank you very much for your assessment, I might even look now (after your post and Tele's reaction) into the general idea of calculating some details like they did - might be interesting to see in which case what model matches.

[seduh]

Frozen is a beast! this will be the last DVD/Blue Ray to sold over 20 million!

[The Futurist]

It s a nice attempt from Deadline, it s probably done by a guy who used to work for a studio in the finance division and that knows the specifics about how studios spend and gain money.

But some of the numbers are wild guesses at best.

MJ 1 had a 140m budget really ? don t think so, the movie has a more little scale than the first movie and we all know the battle happens in part II.

[grim22]

It s a nice attempt from Deadline, it s probably done by a guy who used to work for a studio in the finance division and that knows the specifics about how studios spend and gain money.

But some of the numbers are wild guesses at best.

MJ 1 had a 140m budget really ? don t think so, the movie has a more little scale than the first movie and we all know the battle happens in part II.

 

Finding the true budget of movies is extremely difficult unless you have a situation like the Hobbit trilogy where they had to file their financial documents in New Zealand showing the world that they spent almost 750M on the 3 movies.

[The Futurist]

Finding the true budget of movies is extremely difficult unless you have a situation like the Hobbit trilogy where they had to file their financial documents in New Zealand showing the world that they spent almost 750M on the 3 movies.

Like I said, for me, all the figures from these Deadline articles are guesses, studios never give the specifics of their finances.

210 m for TF4 when you see how many and how big the set pieces are and how long CGI animation there is seems a bit low. But they probably had enormous tax rabates from China.

The participation number for DOFP is crazy. It seems that Singer and the cast members made Fox bleed to do this movie.

Same for Interstellar, I am not sure Nolan made 90 m, it seems incredibly selfish and greedy to me.

Plus Nolan, before Interstellar, was already one of the wealthiest directors thanks to the dark knight trilogy success and Inception.

Edited March 14, 2015 by A Grey Future

[narniadis]

I am amazed that some of yall are dense when it comes to deadline, their readers are the same. They are doing this comparison for the top 20 of the year - obviously fault and maze runner didn't make the top 20??

While it might be stilted and they miss a film that may have had a higher profit they are looking at a domestic gross position only sort of list.

[Mojoguy]

That list is wrong. Frozen has already made a billion from merchandise sales.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/magazine/how-disney-turned-frozen-into-a-cash-cow.html

[James]

Finding the true budget of movies is extremely difficult unless you have a situation like the Hobbit trilogy where they had to file their financial documents in New Zealand showing the world that they spent almost 750M on the 3 movies.

So how the hell did the Deadline article say the budget for the 3rd one alone was 300m?

[terrestrial]

That list is wrong. Frozen has already made a billion from merchandise sales.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/magazine/how-disney-turned-frozen-into-a-cash-cow.html

 

The studio does only get a percentage out of that booked to, the Disney company as a whole (sub-companies...) is getting a lot more out of that (minus the costs,.....).

[terrestrial]

MJ 1 had a 140m budget really ? don t think so, the movie has a more little scale than the first movie and we all know the battle happens in part II.

 

I think there were artikles about the 2 parts being filmed ~ together/back-to-back with a common / one budget.

If to calculate 1/2 budget or e.g. 40/60 seems to depend on the system used by those movie budiness analyzers

 

BOM says $125m, BO.com $180m incl. estimated domestic P&A costs,

I usually wait for that kind of details for 2 to more years after the release, as it hightens the chance of some details getting mentioned in an interview or financial articel or ... like in a shareholders conference or public tax records

[The Futurist]

When two movies are shot at once, it s virtually impossible to have the cost of each movie, I am sure even Lionsgate don t really know.

[kowhite]

The studio does only get a percentage out of that booked to, the Disney company as a whole (sub-companies...) is getting a lot more out of that (minus the costs,.....).

fairly sure the studio gets a very nice percentage.

But...unless you're getting a bonus from the studio, it kinda doesn't really matter how the company dices that up.

[Walt Disney]

fairly sure the studio gets a very nice percentage.

But...unless you're getting a bonus from the studio, it kinda doesn't really matter how the company dices that up.

 

I would imagine in a way that allows the Studio to keep as much of the merchandising profits as possible.

[grim22]

So how the hell did the Deadline article say the budget for the 3rd one alone was 300m?

 

They pulled that number out of their collective asses basically. Here were the filings the Hobbit company did in NZ showing 745M spent on the movies. Unless they spent an additional 150M in the month leading to release, doubt if it cost 300M, especially considering it is probably the only movie we have public financial documents for currently: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hobbit-trilogy-reportedly-cost-745m

[Plain Old Tele]

They pulled that number out of their collective asses basically. Here were the filings the Hobbit company did in NZ showing 745M spent on the movies. Unless they spent an additional 150M in the month leading to release, doubt if it cost 300M, especially considering it is probably the only movie we have public financial documents for currently: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hobbit-trilogy-reportedly-cost-745m

You're assuming all three movies cost the same amount. I know they were all (more or less) a giant production (with some additional shoots), but it's also possible WB decided to break up the costs per movie some way other than evenly. There's no real way to know, though.

[terrestrial]

fairly sure the studio gets a very nice percentage.

But...unless you're getting a bonus from the studio, it kinda doesn't really matter how the company dices that up.

 

Disney is to me a special case

 

Like e.g. GotG

 

they did an (big)  ~ event at Disneyland,

 

and did for a time show a special clip in Disneyland too (a few seconds in till 4:20)

 

 

So who pays whom for it?

 

Disneyland for getting to show it as an event? Or the sudio or ... to Disneyland for them showing it (and redesign... the theater)?

 

Who gets in the Disnayland stores sold merchandise percentages?

To the overall owner Disney, Marvel Entertainment/Property, Marvel Comics, Marvel Toys (Toy Biz), and/or Marvel Studio to what percentages?

 

I am guessing they'll try to avoid as much as possible of merchandise listed in the revenue parts of the studio to avoid possible contracted pay-outs to others.

 

In the end my post was in reaction to the post about Frozen's merchandise... was mostly to hint on the revenue not guaranteed 100% for the studio (excluding costs for the merchandise too, depending on what kind of numbers get stated... ).

 

Btw, GotG was one of the 2 movies per year I usally pick to look into a bit more picked partly because they did ~ newer / other methods of advertising.

Not finished with that yet, sometimes details get mentioned years later in other movies articles...

[jimisawesome]

Disney has a line item for licensing in its 10k reporting.   It received 2.5 billion in licensing and publishing which was up 13 percent.  They do break out video games separate and somehow made just over a billion here.  In their 10k Disney Studio does not report licensing so its all under the line item. 

 

 

Who gets in the Disnayland stores sold merchandise percentages?

To the overall owner Disney, Marvel Entertainment/Property, Marvel Comics, Marvel Toys (Toy Biz), and/or Marvel Studio to what percentages?

Items sold by Disney at the parks would be listed as park revenue.  Items sold by Disney Stores are listed in the section that reports licensing and publishing.  As for reporting Disney does not in general break it out by production company unless its making a specific note say GotG increased licensing a trillion percent YoY. 

 

 

I am guessing they'll try to avoid as much as possible of merchandise listed in the revenue parts of the studio to avoid possible contracted pay-outs to others.

 

Unless you have a piece of the merch it does not matter where they report it because it wont effect gross point participants.  Basically if you are Gross Point you will just take it from theatric revenue because it makes life easier.  There are 3rd parties that you can go to audit the reported box office number.  Its easy to calculate.  I have never heard of a contract that gives a piece of aux income but it does not mean its not out there.  The famous Star Wars deal was because Fox did not think there was a merchandise market of a size to matter so just gave it all to Lucas. 

[terrestrial]

That is what I partly meant, to not belief / counting on the merchandise will get 'booked' as a studio / movie's explecit revenue fully, maybe only precentage or... especially if the company is Disney

 

I was speaking about Disney's internal bookkeeping too, how the accounting people... internally split up the ~ interactive help they give each other, not only about the final details for the overall owner,

 

Like the toys ordered/made by Marvel Toys, in theory they could give some percentages to Marvel Comics/Studio, the creators of the figures, like they would have to do if not being part of Marvel Entertainment. And as such supporting the existence of the sub-company Marvel Comics or Studio, ~ add to their internal balances a bit.

Let's say said toys get partly sold at Disneyland.

To what a price will they get the toys? Probably not the same as Marvel Toys would sell them e.g. to amazon.

Will e.g. get Marvel Comics ... something (internal) out of the sales? Or Marvel Toys for the lessened prize? Or the Studio for the merchandise created to look like the movie ... things and the events they did there?

How do they book such costs and income, for which sub-company.

Its the possibility of them splitting it up internally in a way we might not expect.

 

I think in some ways the creators get accounting-wise aknowledged for their part to fuel the complete companies income, but am not sure how they handle it.

I can not imagine that they'll only say, hey yes, that movie started all that merchandise, the comics helped too, without looking a bit more closely, including for descisions like how much money to work at new/more projects they'll get and such. Some analysis of the casue and effect seems the least the would do, to not do so sounds to me simply not logical, especially for such a big company.

 

Hence the reason I wrote to me Disney (Marvel...) is a special case. As well as Lucas was too one.

 

Why I think they might want to avoid the listing at the studios is, that at least a few actors in the business have or had contracts that include percentages out of the merchandise too.

I read e.g. about the 'Happy Days' & 'Dukes of Hazzard' casts, and the LotR cast sueing for not paid out, but contracted for merchandise percentages = but only if e.g. Downey has something included or so. Or old contracts out of the starting time of Marvel Studio, like Arad might have caused.

He seems also to be a savvy one:

 

When Jack Nicholson accepted the role of the Joker in 1989's "Batman" for $6 million instead of his then-average salary of $10 million, part of the deal was that Nicholson would earn a percentage of the film's total earnings, including merchandise sales. "Batman" was an overwhelming success, grossing $411 million worldwide (or just over $500 million domestically after adjusting for inflation), and Nicholson ended up earning more than $50 million for the role.

 

I know it isn't important for the yearly reports... but I still would love to find some more sources for such kind of details too