The Force Awakens, Avatar, and Exchange Rates

[LinksterAC]

DISCLAIMER:  I love both Avatar and TFA.  Two of my favorite movies of the past ten years.  I also love both of their BO runs.  Both equally impressive in their own ways.

 

I actually went through and made a spreadsheet relating 2010 XR to 2016 XR, and converting TFA's grosses between the two.  

 

I looked at rates on Jan 15 2010 vs Jan 15 2016.  For every single currency.  For every single market.

 

The skinny is that exchange rate fluctiations from 2016 to 2010 have cost TFA roughly $400M in WW gross up to this point, and roughly $360M in OS gross. 

 

That means that at 2010 exchange rates, TFA would be sitting at about $2.3B globally right now, with another $80M to collect domestically, another $40M from China, and another $90M from other markets.

 

So, I was wrong when I said TFA could finish at $2.7B at Avatar's XR.  It would be more like $2.5B.  Still, an enormous WW haul that puts TFA very much in Avatar's neighborhood. 

 

Another curious thing was that many of the so-called "expanding markets" in Latin America and Asia are either 1.) tiny, 2.) suffered the worst XR hits agains the USD (LOOK AT ARGENTINA!), or 3.) both things at once.

 

Some of the big examples are as follows (adding up to $289M WW, including Canada, where they use a different currenty than the United States):

 

The Force Awakens
Country	Gross (M, USD)	2010 XR Gross	Difference 2010 to 2016
Russia	$24	$64	$39.7
Canada (est.)	$86	$125	$38.5
Brazil	$25	$57	$31.8
Germany	$96	$127	$30.5
France	$77	$101	$24.5
United Kingdom	$164	$187	$22.9
Australia	$58	$79	$21.6
Japan	$69	$89	$20.0
Argentina	$7	$26	$18.7
Venezuela	$16	$34	$18.5
Mexico	$26	$38	$11.6
Spain	$33	$43	$10.5

[MovieMan89]

Wow, very nice Linkster. So we already have an additional $286m then for TFA in OS gross just from those countries. 

[IronJimbo]

imo if TFA was released in 2009 instead of Avatar it wouldn't have made $2billion.

Major Reason 1: Less 3D $$ and IMAX $$

 

Major Reason 2: Only 4 years since The Revenge of The sith.

 

Reason 2 is absolutely huge.

TFA however is very unlucked about the XR as you have shown.

 

 

 

[hw64]

Are we moving over here?

 

47 minutes ago, LinksterAC said:

I looked at rates on Jan 15 2010 vs Jan 15 2016.  For every single currency.  For every single market.

 

Which website did you use for the exchange rates?

 

47 minutes ago, LinksterAC said:

Canada (est.)

 

You're severely overestimating Canada's gross. Canada's total box office for this year was $700m USD, in a year when the domestic box office as a whole reached $11b.

 

-

 

Also, there's no point just directly comparing the figure you've calculated to Avatar's worldwide gross. You've taken into account one thing that's in TFA's favor, but if you want to compare the two properly then you also need to take into consideration box office market growth since 2010 (China, Brazil and Russia are not "small" markets), ticket price inflation (I believe the average ticket price for TFA is higher than Avatar's domestically, and the same is true for some (many?) overseas markets), and all that. You can't just take into account exchange rates only and call it a wrap.

 

Edit: Just did a little research and Russia's box office revenue in 2011 was 34b RUB compared to 48b in 2015. That's an increase of over 40% in 4 years. I'll have a look at some more markets.

Edited January 18, 2016 by hw64

[Lordmandeep]

Um What is the gross in Canada?

 

 

I know Avatar 96 million is highest. 

[LinksterAC]

5 minutes ago, hw64 said:

Are we moving over here?

 

 

Which website did you use for the exchange rates?

 

 

You're severely overestimating Canada's gross. Canada's total box office for this year was $700m USD, in a year when the domestic box office as a whole reached $11b.

 

-

 

Also, there's no point just directly comparing the figure you've calculated to Avatar's worldwide gross. You've taken into account one thing that's in TFA's favor, but if you want to compare the two properly then you also need to take into consideration box office market growth since 2010 (China, Brazil and Russia are not "small" markets), ticket price inflation (I believe the average ticket price for TFA is higher than Avatar's domestically, and the same is true for some (many?) overseas markets), and all that. You can't just take into account exchange rates only and call it a wrap.

 

I used XE.com

 

Where do your numbers for Canada come from?  I can't find any Canada-only BO numbers.  The best guess I could make was to take the Canadian BO as a proportion of the NA BO based on poulation.  Canada = 36 million, USA + Canada = 358 million.  Based on that, Canada is roughly 10% of the North American Box Office.  I'm happy to use a better source if you've got one.

 

And, finally, I compared only exchange rates because you asked me to.  I agree there are other variables in play, though, due to 3D share, I doubt that ticket price inflation is actually much of a factor here.  I did look at other small markets throughout Asia and Latin America (I made no claim that China, Brazil, and Russia are small markets).  They are tiny, and their XR situation is generally BAD.  Latin America, in particular, is having a tough go of it.  

 

Edit:

 

Please note that the list of countries in the spreadsheet above represents only a fraction of all the movies I looked at.  The full list is just too long to share, and the smaller list gets the point across.  

 

Edited January 18, 2016 by LinksterAC

[LinksterAC]

12 minutes ago, MovieMan89 said:

Wow, very nice Linkster. So we already have an additional $286m then for TFA in OS gross just from those countries. 

 

Yeah.  Something like that.

 

Avatar is still the clear winner, but exchange rates are brutal for US products abroad right now, and will certainly single-handedly cost TFA the #2 WW spot if it doesn't manage to beat Titanic (and that's not looking great right now).

[Tower]

If you already did the work of calculating every market, you might as well share it.

[MovieMan89]

Just now, LinksterAC said:

 

Yeah.  Something like that.

 

Avatar is still the clear winner, but exchange rates are brutal for US products abroad right now, and will certainly single-handedly cost TFA the #2 WW spot if it doesn't manage to beat Titanic (and that's not looking great right now).

Wouldn't we need to also know 3D share info to say Avatar is still the clear winner though? I was under the assumption Avatar's 3D shares were just as massive in most markets as they were DOM. TFA surely didn't have as high of 3D shares. 

[Lordmandeep]

Latest gross for Canada was 58 million Canadian as of Dec 31.

 

 

[LinksterAC]

7 minutes ago, Lordmandeep said:

Um What is the gross in Canada?

 

 

I know Avatar 96 million is highest. 

 

I estimated based on poulation proportion.  

 

Now that i think about that, that isn't really a great model since the Canadian dollar is weak.  

 

Canadian BO as a proportion of NA Bo should be more like 6% or 7% because of that.

 

The list should look more like this:

 

The Force Awakens
Country	Gross (M, USD)	2010 XR Gross	Difference 2010 to 2016
Russia	$24	$64	$39.7
Canada (est.)	$55	$80	$24.6
Brazil	$25	$57	$31.8
Germany	$96	$127	$30.5

[hw64]

5 minutes ago, LinksterAC said:

The best guess I could make was to take the Canadian BO as a proportion of the NA BO based on poulation.  Canada = 36 million, USA + Canada = 358 million.  Based on that, Canada is roughly 10% of the North American Box Office.  I'm happy to use a better source if you've got one.

 

That's extremely inaccurate methodology - there's no real correlation between population and box office revenue. Check here for my source. I don't have Canada numbers either, but a much better guess would be taking Canada's box office as a percentage of NA's: 0.7/11 ~= 6.4%.

 

11 minutes ago, LinksterAC said:

And, finally, I compared only exchange rates because you asked me to. I agree there are other variables in play, though, due to 3D share, I doubt that ticket price inflation is actually much of a factor here.

 

I know, but then don't try and compare the $2.5b you've calculated to Avatar's $2.8b; if you agree that there are many other factors that come into play, then this comparison is completely meaningless.

[LinksterAC]

5 minutes ago, Tower said:

If you already did the work of calculating every market, you might as well share it.

 

Full list of every market I could find over $1M USD

 

Canada is updated to $58M thanks to @Lordmandeep

 

The Force Awakens
Country	Gross (M, USD)	2010 XR Gross	Difference 2010 to 2016
Russia	$24	$64	$39.7
Brazil	$25	$57	$31.8
Germany	$96	$127	$30.5
Canada (est.)	$58	$84	$26.0
France	$77	$101	$24.5
United Kingdom	$164	$187	$22.9
Australia	$58	$79	$21.6
Japan	$69	$89	$20.0
Argentina	$7	$26	$18.7
Venezuela	$16	$34	$18.5
Mexico	$26	$38	$11.6
Spain	$33	$43	$10.5
Italy	$28	$37	$8.9
Poland	$14	$20	$6.2
Turkey	$5	$11	$5.9
Ukraine	$3	$8	$5.5
Norway	$8	$13	$4.6
Netherlands	$13	$17	$4.2
South Africa	$3	$7	$3.7
Sweden	$17	$20	$3.5
Chile	$7	$11	$3.5
Denmark	$11	$14	$3.4
Hungary	$6	$9	$3.2
Colombia	$4	$7	$2.9
Belgium	$8	$11	$2.7
Austria	$8	$11	$2.6
Finland	$7	$9	$2.2
Malaysia	$6	$8	$2.1
India	$4	$6	$2.0
South Korea	$23	$25	$2.0
Romania	$3	$4	$1.4
Czech Republic	$4	$5	$1.3
Bulgaria	$3	$5	$1.3
New zealand	$9	$10	$1.2
Peru	$6	$7	$1.2
Portugal	$3	$4	$1.0
Greece	$3	$4	$1.0
Thailand	$4	$5	$0.4
Croatia	$1	$2	$0.4
Taiwan	$6	$6	$0.3
Slovakia	$1	$1	$0.3
Singapore	$7	$7	$0.2
Israel	$3	$3	$0.2
Philippines	$4	$4	$0.2
Iceland	$1	$1	$0.1
Ecuador	$3	$3	$0.0
Hong Kong	$10	$10	$0.0
UAE	$5	$5	$0.0
Bolivia	$2	$2	$0.0
Switzerland (Fr)	$4	$4	-$0.1
Switzerland (Gr)	$7	$7	-$0.2
China	$66	$64	-$2.2

[hw64]

7 minutes ago, Tower said:

If you already did the work of calculating every market, you might as well share it.

 

I agree. You don't have to paste all the numbers into this thread; there are plenty of places you can upload an excel file.

[hw64]

2 minutes ago, LinksterAC said:

Canada

 

The figure was in CAD, not USD.

[LinksterAC]

1 minute ago, hw64 said:

 

That's extremely inaccurate methodology - there's no real correlation between population and box office revenue. Check here for my source. I don't have Canada numbers either, but a much better guess would be taking Canada's box office as a percentage of NA's: 0.7/11 ~= 6.4%.

 

 

I know, but then don't try and compare the $2.5b you've calculated to Avatar's $2.8b; if you agree that there are many other factors that come into play, then this comparison is completely meaningless.

 

Find me 3D shares international markets for both countries, and we can talk.  I suspect the favored Avatar, not TFA, and inflated Avatar's gross.

 

And the comparison based on XR is not completely meaningless.  Why?  Because BO grosses are generally an independent variable from international exchange rates.  The XR doesn't affect the market conditions of the movie within each given country. 

 

The only time the rates affect the gross of a movie is when you convert a gross from one currency to another.  

 

If you reported grosses in native currencies only, it would paint a much, much rosier picture for TFA in the TFA to Avatar comparison.  So which road is more valid?  The gross in native dollars or US dollars?  I don't know!  Do you?  If you're an advocate for OS markets, wouldn't you want equal consideration for the native currencies?

 

Whatever the case, I think it's fair to look at it both ways.

[LinksterAC]

5 minutes ago, hw64 said:

 

The figure was in CAD, not USD.

 

Thank you.

 

Ok, using your 6.4% estimate (which is something I reasoned out earlier), your total estimated Canadian gross is $55M is USD, not $58M.

[NCsoft]

If you want to do this, you need to consider market reduction, the highest grossing film before Avatar in China was 2012 grossing 68 million USD (Avatar tripled that in China), back in 2009, TFA would be lucky to gross 25 Million USD if it were released in China back in 2009, which is 100 million less than what it would have made now.

So not considering market reduction in other countries, China alone result in 100M less than what it will have.

Edited January 18, 2016 by NCsoft

[hw64]

12 minutes ago, LinksterAC said:

 

Find me 3D shares international markets for both countries, and we can talk.  I suspect the favored Avatar, not TFA, and inflated Avatar's gross.

 

And the comparison based on XR is not completely meaningless.  Why?  Because BO grosses are generally an independent variable from international exchange rates.  The XR doesn't affect the market conditions of the movie within each given country. 

 

The only time the rates affect the gross of a movie is when you convert a gross from one currency to another.  

 

If you reported grosses in native currencies only, it would paint a much, much rosier picture for TFA in the TFA to Avatar comparison.  So which road is more valid?  The gross in native dollars or US dollars?  I don't know!  Do you?  If you're an advocate for OS markets, wouldn't you want equal consideration for the native currencies?

 

Whatever the case, I think it's fair to look at it both ways.

 

I'm all for comparing in native currencies; from what I've seen, Avatar is still significantly ahead in almost every overseas market. Better yet, take out ticket price inflation and look directly at admissions; that way you only need to account for market growth.

 

Speaking of market growth, Brazil's box office revenue for 2015 was 2.3b BRL, up from 1.23b in 2010.

Edited January 18, 2016 by hw64

[LinksterAC]

Just now, NCsoft said:

If you want to do this, you need to consider market reduction, the highest grossing film before Avatar in China was 2012 grossing 68 million USD (Avatar tripled that in China), back in 2009, TFA would be lucky to gross 25 Million USD if it were released in China back in 2009, which is 100 million less than what it would have made now.

So not considering market reduction in other countries, China alone is 100 M less than what is has right now. 

 

Why don't you factor in BO market size in the USA or the West then?

 

I will concede there are a lot of other variables to take into consideration when analyzing a movie's run, but XR is probably the most arbitrary item, and the easiest to adjust for.  As I mentioned earlier, if you reported each movies' gross in native currencies, the comparisons between big films would look a lot different.  Which currency is more valid?