SUICIDE SQUAD WEEKEND THREAD | New REVISED SUNDAY NUMBER 134m FROM GURU ON PG 212 | 267.1M WW OW | Nine Lives 6.5 OW |No Spoilers Allowed!!! | ACCOUNT SALES THIS WEEKEND - see first post for details !!

[Talkie]

49 minutes ago, Water Bottle said:

 

Did WB go on like every news program out there and run TV ads telling people there will be an extended cut? Did WB have people stand outside the theater telling them there will be an extended cut? 'Cause if so, you might have a point. If not, I really don't see how enough people knew about the extended cut to make a difference. Not everyone follows entertainment news. Also a mistake? They had to announce there was an extended cut to try and quell nerd anger.

 

 

 

People here forget that the GA doesn't follow all of this minutiae about movies and the various cuts the directors/studios make of them. It's quite probable that very few people were aware of the ultimate cut of BvS beyond online fans until it went on sale. The same can be said of the competing cuts of Suicide Squad. Normal folks  neither know nor care that the version released differs from the one created by the director. And unless WB releases another "ultimate" version, most people never will find out. 

[superweirdo87]

21 minutes ago, UrosepsisFace said:

Question: if Suicide Squad on 175m budget needs 800m to break even, what did Thor on 150m budget need? Or Thor Dark World 170m, CA: TWS 170m, CA 140m? Did half the Marvel Cinematic Universe lose money? Does that mean the whole X-Men trilogy (160m-200m budgets) lost money? Wouldn't that mean the whole Star Trek franchise (150m - 190m) hemorrhaged money? I'm going about this the long way...wouldn't just above every tentpole movie for the last 20 years have lost money?

 

1. The production costs might have been higher than 175m. 

2. Pricey P&A. Marketing costs have soared in general, and WB might have gone all out because it was important to them.

3.  Gross points/participations.

 

But, I think that 750/800M figure pertains to theatrical revenues. The profit margin for most movies comes out of home entertainment and TV rights.

Edited August 9, 2016 by superweirdo87

[Dementeleus]

All these big tentpoles spend about 140-170m on WW marketing. 

[RRA]

20 minutes ago, UrosepsisFace said:

Question: if Suicide Squad on 175m budget needs 800m to break even, what did Thor on 150m budget need? Or Thor Dark World 170m, CA: TWS 170m, CA 140m? Did half the Marvel Cinematic Universe lose money? Does that mean the whole X-Men trilogy (160m-200m budgets) lost money? Wouldn't that mean the whole Star Trek franchise (150m - 190m) hemorrhaged money? I'm going about this the long way...wouldn't just above every tentpole movie for the last 20 years have lost money?

 

You're assuming that "official" budget is the actual budget. Faraci had reported that it was "much much higher" than was reported.

 

Or put it another way, BVS' "official" budget was $250 million, but THR reported at the time they heard it was really $325 million...and remember that was before the marketing budget ($150 something million) kicked in. Deadline reported BVS needed to cross $930 million to break even. So let's say BVS "alleged" budget plus marketing together, that's 475 million. Usually your box office has to double your budget to break even, so 475x2=950 million.

Not exact, but putting those reported facts above and put them into context you could understand then why Deadline reported that goalpost # and it's pretty believable.

SS cost a hell lot more than $175 million. Even if you add in the ad budget (which might've been 9 figures I'm guessing) to that official budget, that still wouldn't explain why it needs to hit 750-800 million to break even. So the real budget was $225 million, add 100 million, that's 325 million. 150 million less than BVS...thus needing to make 150 or so million less to break even.

[Dementeleus]

Sure, if you just decide to add 50-60m to every budget that was rumored to be "way higher". 

 

Put it this way: FURY ROAD had some well-publicized reshoots that substantially boosted its budget... but even then that was "only" 30m more. 

 

Or put it another way: even going off official budgets, MOS cost $258m, had a massive 170m spent on WW marketing, "only" made a bit under 700m worldwide..... and still made at least 50m in profits (all these numbers based off DHD's blockbuster breakdowns).

 

The problem is that someone spitballs a wild number off the top of their head and we assume it's some hyper-accurate detail. All they meant was "it needs to make a shitload to get profitable". 

[RRA]

6 minutes ago, superweirdo87 said:

 

1. The production costs might have been higher than 175m. 

2. Pricey P&A. Marketing costs have soared in general, and WB might have gone all out because it was important to them.

3.  Gross points/participations.

 

But, I think that 750/800M figure pertains to theatrical revenues. The profit margin for most movies comes out of home entertainment and TV rights.

 

These numbers refer to theatrical release. They NEVER add TV/PPV/DVD/whatever auxillary money to theatrical grosses.
 Or put it another way, WB just inked a deal with NBC Universal a major deal (apparently in the 8 figures) involving the Harry Potter movies (past and future) where NBCU cable channels like say SyFy Channel can exclusively air those HP movies, among other things. Is this big paycheck going to be added for all the HP films' box office? Of course not.
 

[superweirdo87]

Tele, is that unavoidable? Deadpool scored over 400M OS. I would assume that given its budget, Fox did not want to spend a lot on P&A.

[RRA]

1 minute ago, Tele the Jet Baller said:

Sure, if you just decide to add 50-60m to every budget that was rumored to be "way higher". 

 

Put it this way: FURY ROAD had some well-publicized reshoots that substantially boosted its budget... but even then that was "only" 30m more. 

 

Or or put it another way: even going off official budgets, MOS cost $258m, had a massive 170m spent on WW marketing, "only" made a bit under 700m worldwide..... and still made at least 50m in profits (all these numbers based off DHD's blockbuster breakdowns).

 

I'm just going off the number given in that THR piece, and reverse engineering effectively in my speculation. Nothing more.

Let's say that official budget is legit for the sake of discussion. Add that 170 million ad budget # you tossed out for average blockbusters. 175+170 = 345 million. Double that, it would need 690 million.

That's still what, 60-11 million short of the "break even" range cited in that THR piece?
 

[Dementeleus]

1 minute ago, RRA said:

 

I'm just going off the number given in that THR piece, and reverse engineering effectively in my speculation. Nothing more.

Let's say that official budget is legit for the sake of discussion. Add that 170 million ad budget # you tossed out for average blockbusters. 175+170 = 345 million. Double that, it would need 690 million.

That's still what, 60-11 million short of the "break even" range cited in that THR piece?
 

 

But a movie doesn't live off theatrical revenues alone. Even with the HV market much lower than it was in the 90s, there are still literally hundreds of millions to be made through HV/VOD/premium/cable/network TV, etc -- and with much less costs than theatrical as well. 

 

Most of these big movies don't turn a profit off theatrical alone -- pretty much it's only the mega-blockbusters that go past 1b can say that. 

[superweirdo87]

3 minutes ago, RRA said:

 

These numbers refer to theatrical release. They NEVER add TV/PPV/DVD/whatever auxillary money to theatrical grosses.
 Or put it another way, WB just inked a deal with NBC Universal a major deal (apparently in the 8 figures) involving the Harry Potter movies (past and future) where NBCU cable channels like say SyFy Channel can exclusively air those HP movies, among other things. Is this big paycheck going to be added for all the HP films' box office? Of course not.
 

 

It will not be added, but it is super important to studios and assessing the bottom line of a movie. 

 

See here:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_hollywood_economist/2005/08/hollywoods_profits_demystified.html

 

http://www.mhpbooks.com/guess-what-harry-potter-movies-do-make-money/

" It is true that Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix lost money on its theatrical run, but so do almost all Hollywood movies... Since the negative cost for this Harry Potter film was $315.9 million (which included the payments to the author and other gross players), the film was in the red after its theatrical run. But so what? This was only initial harvest of money. The real profits in Hollywood come from harvesting the back-end, which includes the DVD market, Pay-TV (HBO), and TV network and cable licensing."

[RRA]

1 hour ago, exomassey said:

Do you think BvS had a 69% drop because it announced a ultimate cut? It's may have been a factor but WOM was very very poor

 

I would argue no because let's be honest, that extended cut was marketed/catered towards the hardcore fanbase as most such "director's cuts" tend to be because they believe those people would gladly fork over money to see this movie not once but several times and then buy this extended cut months later on Blu-Ray. (Data recently backed up by big sales.) Same way Tolkein heads back in the day watched LOTR in theaters, then bought those Extended Edition DVD sets.

[Dementeleus]

9 minutes ago, superweirdo87 said:

Tele, is that unavoidable? Deadpool scored over 400M OS. I would assume that given its budget, Fox did not want to spend a lot on P&A.

 

It might be on the lower end of that range, but it's almost unavoidable to spend less than 60-80m on domestic marketing and about the same for international. The only way Fox might've saved costs is preselling foreign rights (and thus not spending anything on international marketing), but I don't remember seeing anything about that. (And, of course, they wouldn't get their cut of OS grosses as well, if they did that).

[superweirdo87]

RRA, you can look at Deadline to get a very rough idea.

 

Overhead, interest, residuals, off-the-tops, and participations or gross points.

 

Some players get money on top of their salaries that is tied to bench marks.

 

[RRA]

1 minute ago, Tele the Jet Baller said:

 

But a movie doesn't live off theatrical revenues alone. Even with the HV market much lower than it was in the 90s, there are still literally hundreds of millions to be made through HV/VOD/premium/cable/network TV, etc -- and with much less costs than theatrical as well. 

 

Most of these big movies don't turn a profit off theatrical alone -- pretty much it's only the mega-blockbusters that go past 1b can say that. 

 

Umm, yeah? That's not what we're talking about. I'm talking theatrical because these studios live and die on theatrical #s in public for their stockholders.  Perception is reality. DVD and cable and stuff, that's supposed to be the "pure gravy" to be enjoyed on top of the theatrical profits.

Or put it another way: Look what happened after BVS underperformed in theaters. Charles Roven got canned from producing several DC movies. Zack Snyder demoted from "DC Godfather" to just director of JUSTICE LEAGUE and under heavy WB exec supervision (according to Kris Tapley at Variety), oh and Geoff Johns got a sweet promotion.
I'm assuming BVS has or will break even and finally make a profit on Blu-Ray/DVD and future TV.  WB understood that long term BVS will be in the black, yet they made those demotions I mentioned above and announced "course correction" decisions to appease disgruntled fans anyway. Think about it, why?

Because BVS actually lost money in theaters, which it wasn't supposed to do. It was suppose to make a billion dollars in theaters, make AVENGERS money and kick off more movies that make craploads of money. The latter is TBD, but the former it absolutely did not do.
 

 

[RRA]

3 hours ago, Tele the Jet Baller said:

If that number's remotely right, it's for all revenues, not just theatrical. Even then, 750-800m seems way too high for basic profitability. MOS, with a significantly larger budget (and a huge WW marketing campaign), went into profitability in the 600s.

 

How about I quote from the actual THR article itself? This is the paragraph I've been talking about tonight:

 

Quote

Even on the day of the premiere, one insider fretted about whether Suicide Squad would mirror BvS' huge opening and weak legs. Another veteran says the goal is survival: "The movie's got to do $750 million, $800 million to break even. If they get anywhere close to that, they'll consider it a win."

 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/suicide-squads-secret-drama-rushed-916693

 

Seems pretty clear cut they're talking about theatrical release and not talking about DVD and T-shirts and whatever stuff.

 

 

Edited August 9, 2016 by RRA

[Fancyarcher]

10 hours ago, nilephelan said:

 

It would be nice if they developed a new villain.  No offense to DC, but the bad guys always sound incredibly corny for the most part beyond Gen. Zod and Lex Luthor (and they even screwed him up).  

 

Metallo and Brainiac are downright silly at this point in 2016.  

 

Before Superman 2, General Zod was actually a minor villain. He only got popular because they randomly decided to choose him as the antagonist for Superman 2.

 

Brainiac and Metallo would make great villains (Metallo more so a secondary antagonist). Who cares about how stupid there names sound? Audiences have shown that they can embrace so-called "silly names" just fine. It's fantasy for god sakes. We need more Superman villains on the big screen, there's a lot of wasted potential there.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Daniel Dylan Davis

[superweirdo87]

4 minutes ago, RRA said:

 

Umm, yeah? That's not what we're talking about. I'm talking theatrical because these studios live and die on theatrical #s in public for their stockholders.  Perception is reality. DVD and cable and stuff, that's supposed to be the "pure gravy" to be enjoyed on top of the theatrical profits.

Or put it another way: Look what happened after BVS underperformed in theaters. Charles Roven got canned from producing several DC movies. Zack Snyder demoted from "DC Godfather" to just director of JUSTICE LEAGUE and under heavy WB exec supervision (according to Kris Tapley at Variety), oh and Geoff Johns got a sweet promotion.
I'm assuming BVS has or will break even and finally make a profit on Blu-Ray/DVD and future TV.  WB understood that long term BVS will be in the black, yet they made those demotions I mentioned above and announced "course correction" decisions to appease disgruntled fans anyway. Think about it, why?

Because BVS actually lost money in theaters, which it wasn't supposed to do. It was suppose to make a billion dollars in theaters, make AVENGERS money and kick off more movies that make craploads of money. The latter is TBD, but the former it absolutely did not do.
 

 

 

RRA, if you dig into how studios make profits, it becomes readily apparent that DVD and cable are not "pure gravy" to be enjoyed on top of the theatrical profits. They're where the profits are in Hollywood.

 

It is rare for an event movie to make a profit off of theatrical revenues. Harry Potter 5 did not. I do not think stockholders freaked out because of the way profits happened.

[Dementeleus]

20 minutes ago, RRA said:

 

Umm, yeah? That's not what we're talking about. I'm talking theatrical because these studios live and die on theatrical #s in public for their stockholders.  Perception is reality. DVD and cable and stuff, that's supposed to be the "pure gravy" to be enjoyed on top of the theatrical profits.

 

 

But this isn't true. Money is money. Ancillary revenues are the bread-and-butter for studios. Stockholders care about money coming in, it's not like they discount other revenues cuz they're not as sexy. 

 

16 minutes ago, RRA said:

Seems pretty clear cut they're talking about theatrical release and not talking about DVD and T-shirts and whatever stuff.

 

He says nothing about theatrical or otherwise. Plus, like I said, he's just throwing numbers out there. It could be he's giving an accurate figure, it could be that he's just throwing out a broad range based on a wild guess. 

 

To describe ancillary revenues as "DVDs and T-shirts and stuff" is just silly. Nor am I trying to use merchandise for numbers: I'm talking about specific non-theatrical revenue that the movie itself earns. 

 

The age-old way to determine rough profitability is to take the production budget and multiply by 2-2.5, and that's as good as guess as any (especially since we don't know any of the actual numbers).

 

edit: I guess I should also say that while movies used to be able to routinely cruise to profitability off theatrical revenue alone, the huge surge in marketing expenses means that's no longer the case. BVS was hurt simply because people expected it to be a mega-tentpole, and it turned out to be just  big one. The HOBBIT movies were similarly "hurt", but even they were gigantic cash cows for WB. 

[superweirdo87]

RRA, the thing about shareholders, is that it might be all blurry to them. Hollywood purposely makes it so.

 

Per the "Slate" article I linked to above.

"The best-kept secret in Hollywood, especially from Wall Street, is that the movie studios' biggest profit center is not theatrical movies, or even DVD sales; it is TV licensing. If the details of the profits remain clouded to outsiders, it is no accident. The studios purposely blur together their three principal revenue sources—the box office, video sales, and television licensing—into a single portmanteau category called "studio entertainment" in their quarterly and annual reports."

 

As long as numbers look good enough, it might be enough for shareholders. Also, you just doubled theatrical revenues. If you are really serious about just judging on theatrical revenues, then it's important to remember that foreign box office brings in forty cents for the dollar outside of China.

[jb007]

It is really hard to work out the break even point or profitability/loss without the following,

 

1. Actual production and marketing budgets including discounts vide tax breaks etc

2. Actual overseas theatrical share ratio: for ex. FF7 Overseas theatrical share is way smaller than TFA given FF7 had a much bigger China gross

3. Actual ancillary revenue share for the studio

 

So without the above, we are left with speculating as to what the actual profitability/loss is.