Deadline's Most Valuable Blockbuster Tournament (2016)

[Eevin]

You give some great analysis @Barnack. Happy to see you posting on these forums!

[Jonwo]

I'm surprised Fantastic Beasts were only slightly more profitable than SS, I guess Rowling, Yates and I guess Redmayne had a good percentage of bonuses and gross. 

 

Pets, Zootopia and Rogue One must be top three with The Jungle Book at 4 or 5. I wonder where Bridget Jones's Baby came, I guess it missed the top twenty but that must have made a healthy profit.

[Barnack]

24 minutes ago, Jonwo said:

I'm surprised Fantastic Beasts were only slightly more profitable than SS, I guess Rowling, Yates and I guess Redmayne had a good percentage of bonuses and gross. =

 

They only put an extremelly small 30 million participations bonus on Beast, it is mostly the nature of the box office (where it was from), they used a bigger one for SS (35 million).

 

233.85 domestic for beast vs 325.1 for Suicide Squad and none from China.

 

Theatrical rental

SS: 330, total revenues 618.3, from a 745 million box office

Beast: 335, total revenus 613.3, from a 812.5 million box office

 

domestic box office tend to be about 1.3 time has valuable as foreign in those kind of calculation (a bit more in that case because of the China factor), they get a bigger share but also the following windows are more profitable too.

 

P.S. that 30 million participation bonus to Rowling, Yates and David Heyman, make not much sense to me.

 

If we look at the famous:

http://deadline.com/2010/07/studio-shame-even-harry-potter-pic-loses-money-because-of-warner-bros-phony-baloney-accounting-51886/

 

Look at the line called negative cost and/or advance that is growing at the rate of 30% of the gross revenue after distribution fee, that is probably closer to the kind of participation deal that is going on a Potter movie, at the time it was probably a good 200 million by entry, in that leaked example they were already at 316 million - the production budget of the movie, with TV still to do and Dvds does not seem to be included either (they were probably not getting 30% of those gross sales of those). Always wondered if the Video Cassette line was actually VHS that were still going on in some market or they were still using old formula to calculate revenue that was not taking into account how more profitable dvd were.

Edited March 29, 2017 by Barnack

[Jonwo]

41 minutes ago, Barnack said:

P.S. that 30 million participation bonus to Rowling, Yates and David Heyman, make not much sense to me.

 

Rowling likely got a good chunk of change as writer and producer so it's no surprise she gets the most money, I wonder if it was $10m each or $20m for Rowling and $5m each for Yates and Heyman? 

 

 

[Barnack]

20 hours ago, Jonwo said:

 

Rowling likely got a good chunk of change as writer and producer so it's no surprise she gets the most money, I wonder if it was $10m each or $20m for Rowling and $5m each for Yates and Heyman? 

 

 

 

It does sound way too low (at least looking at the leak of the 2007 Potter movie, it did look like they were getting 30% in participation bonus, from the gross after an off the top 30% distribution expense).

 

Heyman is the producer from the beginning, powerful enough to make a movie like Gravity happen, I would imagine he is getting 2% of revenue pool minimum has a bonus, around 10m very minimum, Rowling is getting producer points, screenwriting point, story rights point and Yates had a ridiculously high box office average on that series he must be getting a 7% type of participation profit deal.

 

To give an idea how reasonably low 30 million would be on that over 850 million at the box office franchise movie with those people, it is less than the 41.5 million in participation bonus that was paid on Superbad, 100 million less than the 130.7 million paid on Da Vinci Code, 125 million less than the bonus paid on Spider-Men 3.

 

Edited March 29, 2017 by Barnack

[cannastop]

11 hours ago, Jonwo said:

I'm surprised Fantastic Beasts were only slightly more profitable than SS, I guess Rowling, Yates and I guess Redmayne had a good percentage of bonuses and gross. 

 

Pets, Zootopia and Rogue One must be top three with The Jungle Book at 4 or 5. I wonder where Bridget Jones's Baby came, I guess it missed the top twenty but that must have made a healthy profit.

I think you forgot about Finding Dory.

[The Panda]

6 minutes ago, cannastop said:

I think you forgot about Finding Dory.

 

It's something like

 

 

5.The Jungle Book

4.Zootopia

3.Dory

2.Rogue One

1.Deadpool

[Ethan Hunt]

14 minutes ago, Beauty and The Panda said:

 

It's something like

 

 

5.The Jungle Book

4.Zootopia

3.Dory

2.Rogue One

1.Deadpool

Secret Life of Pets?

[The Panda]

23 minutes ago, Ethan Hunt said:

Secret Life of Pets?

 

Oh yeah that'll probably be above TJB at least.

[cannastop]

#6 is The Jungle Book, so both Pets and Zootopia beat the classic Disney remake.

[cannastop]

Zootopia came in at #5, with estimated profits of $294m, which compares nicely to 2015's Inside Out, which had a profit of $279m.

[TalismanRing]

6. The Jungle Book

 

Net Profit: $258m 

Cash Return: 1.56

 

Quote

There were $50 million in Participations, Residuals and Off-The-Tops, and you can bet Favreau was well paid in this endeavor, as well he should have been. The picture won an Oscar for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, and there will be a sequel, even though Favreau put it down to jump right into The Lion King, which has the potential to be as big or bigger than any of the Disney live-action adaptations of its animated classics. The bottom line: Disney’s total costs were $460 million, and the realized and projected revenues are $718 million. That leaves Disney with a net profit of $258 million, and a Cash on Cash Return of 1.56.

 

5.  Zootopia

 

Net Profit: $294m 

Cash Return: 1.71

 

Quote

A reasonable $35 million was expended in Participations and Residuals and Off-the-Tops. All this left Disney with total costs of $416 million, and global revenues of $711 million. According to our experts, Disney turned an eye-popping $294 million in net profits, and a Cash on Cash Return of 1.71. A note to incoming Paramount chairman Jim Gianopulos: start a family film division right away, with a visionary to run it like Chris Meledandri and John Lasseter (not that those guys grown on trees). Is there any doubt that a couple of skillfully made animated family films is the fastest way to turn around a sluggish studio?

 

[Barnack]

9 hours ago, Beauty and The Panda said:

 

It's something like

 

 

5.The Jungle Book

4.Zootopia

3.Dory

2.Rogue One

1.Deadpool

 

deadpool vs Rogue one will be an interesting one, one big advantage for Rogue One will be participation deal wise, Kennedy probably has a fat deal, but you probably do not need much for the actors (specially that you do not needed to lock them sequels wise), while Kinberg and Reynolds must have made a fortune on Deadpool (they were probably accepting bigger but only after profit participation instead of gross dollar to help make it made.... more surprising blockbuster like gravity can sometime be the biggest paycheck). I would imagine that the product placement being so good on Star wars that the releasing cost will not be that dissimilar.

 

Using deadline usual formula

 

Theatrical Rental

Deadpool: 363 * .5 + 420 * .4 = 349.5 million

Rogue One: 531 * .5 + (523.8-69.5) * .4 + 69.5*.25 = 464.6 million (115 million more)

 

The budget difference of 140 million is already pretty much gone just with the rental, should be close.

 

[Jonwo]

Bit of a stretch calling Chris Meledandri a visionary, I admit his strategy for making animated films for under $75m, using simple but appealing concepts and marketing the shit out of them have made Illumination a big player but he's nowhere near as good as Lasseter or anyone at Pixar and WDAS. 

 

Edited March 30, 2017 by Jonwo

[Plain Old Tele]

4 minutes ago, Jonwo said:

Bit of a stretch Chris Meledandri a visionary, I admit his strategy for making animated films for under $75m and using simple but appealing concepts have made Illumination a big player but he's nowhere near as good as Lasseter or anyone at Pixar and WDAS. 

 

 

That's putting it mildly. 

 

To say nothing of the fact that animated movies tend to have a longer production cycle than live-action, and you begin to wonder where you can get whatever DHD is smoking. 

[cannastop]

Just now, Telerian said:

 

That's putting it mildly. 

 

To say nothing of the fact that animated movies tend to have a longer production cycle than live-action, and you begin to wonder where you can get whatever DHD is smoking. 

All they're smoking is total ignorance of how animation works.

[Eevin]

Predicts: 

#4: Dory

#3: SLOP
#2: Rogue One

#1: Deadpool

[Barnack]

47 minutes ago, Telerian said:

 

That's putting it mildly. 

 

To say nothing of the fact that animated movies tend to have a longer production cycle than live-action, and you begin to wonder where you can get whatever DHD is smoking. 

 

I was going to say that not only they cost a fortune but if you want to well craft them as well as Disney, it is often a 5 year's process, not that quick of a turn around, you have time to loose your jobs as studio runner and for your replacement too before to see any result.

[cannastop]

I also have a feeling that they overestimated the marketing cost for Zootopia. It didn't even have a Superbowl ad! No way they spent more on marketing Zootopia than Sing.

Edited March 30, 2017 by cannastop

[TalismanRing]

1 hour ago, cannastop said:

I also have a feeling that they overestimated the marketing cost for Zootopia. It didn't even have a Superbowl ad! No way they spent more on marketing Zootopia than Sing.

 

They seem to have a blanket go to number for marketing costs according to genre and budget of the movie.  Disney spends less on ads and marketing than Illumination but they had Moana and Zootopia expenses the same WW as Sing.   Meledandri isn't a genius as to quality of film but as to keeping the budgets lower and spending considerably more on marketing to receive huge box office..  That's not reflected anywhere in these budget break downs.  Ispottv last recorded Sing at $56m+ in just US TV ads with Moana around $25m  (a bit higher than Civil War last recorded at $19m).  Similarly, Deadline had Civil War WW prints & marketing even a bit above SS and BvS when WB marketed both those films over a far longer period of time than Disney and their US TV ad spend was higher as is typical with WB.