Is there a formula to figure out the likely backend revenue using WW gross?

[grey ghost]

I figured a movie will make around 35 percent (wild guess) of the worldwide gross on the backend (dvd, tv rights).So Transformers 3 which made 1.1 billion worldwide would expect roughly 385 million from tv rights and dvd sales. Is that an accurate estimate that would apply to most movies?

[rockNrollaDIM]

Probably not... If you just pulled the number out of thin air?

[grey ghost]

Well does anyone have backend totals for a few major blockbusters? Maybe we can figure out a formula.

[Fake]

revenue from DVD sales should be have similar percentage in Europe as in US, but in piracy affected markets like India, China etc. they are much much less.

[pinocchio]

Don't think there is a formula. Some movies disappoint at the box office, but have great and endless TV-reruns and so on.

[rockNrollaDIM]

Don't think there is a formula. Some movies disappoint at the box office, but have great and endless TV-reruns and so on.

I do notice that some movies get played constantly on TV, where they seem to go into rotation every month or so. And others will debut on a channel and then they hardly play it again. Do you know if a TV network has to renew the license every so often, or is there a cost structure in place where they pay more depending on how often they show the film? Or is it a one time cost, regardless of how many times they do or don't air it?

[pinocchio]

Question is, who owns the TV rights? If it's the network, they own them for a few years and become a seller to other channels who have to pay every time they show it. If ABC has the full TV-rights for Potter they can show it as often as they want, I guess. Deals often include one re-run within 24 hours, but if you want to show it again a year later, you of course have to pay again.If a movie never plays again it's because the ratings sucked.

[rockNrollaDIM]

Well that's what I wanted to know- does a network have to pay the studio each individual time they air the film? I thought that they paid X amount of dollars to own the rights to a film for Y amount of time. For example, we always hear about the American TV station FX buying TV rights for films for something like "12% of box office gross" or something along those lines... I can't imagine they would pay $10-20 mil just to air a film 2 times?But that's why I thought it is a gamble.. for some films, say for example they pay $15 mil for rights to "Horrible Bosses", but they air it 35 times and get $50 million (or whatever) in advertising revenue out of it... well that was a good investment for the TV channel. But on the other side, say they pay $6 million for "The Devil Inside", they aire it once or twice and it bombs in the ratings so they never show it again... do they just eat the cost? Is that part of the gamble? Because then it might be better for them to pay each time they air it, rather than a lump sum for unlimited rights...

[pinocchio]

Movies are often sold within packages to TV channels. Means you have to buy some turkeys if you want to show Harry Potter in the end.But there are really dozens of business models. Sometimes an independent company buys the TV rights and re-sells them. Harry Potter TV rights in Germany for example are a complete mess. Nobody owns all the movies which means in Germany you will never be able to see all eight movies in a row on a single network. (Which is no problem for SW or LOTR.)