The Worst Product Flops of 2012

[thismeintiel]

Barozi said:

thismeintiel said:

Barozi said:

From what I've heard, films need to make about twice as much money at the box office as their budget was to break even. I pretty much doubt that it even made a $1 profit even with DVD/Blu-Ray revenue.

Then you're horribly misinformed.  The "production budget" covers everything but marketing.  Which if Disney is truthful in the costs of the film and marketing, then it would need to make $350M to break even.  However, like I said above, movie studios always exaggerate their budgets to the public to make them seem bigger than they are.  I'm sure Disney turned a small profit on the movie.  Of course, that's not what they wanted ideally.

So what do cinema operators earn per sold ticket ? $1 profit ?

The vast majority of theatres' money comes from concession sales, as well as the ads before the movie.  For about the first month a movie is out, the theatre keeps ~20% of the ticket sales, while ~80% goes back to the studio.  After that first month, the studio only keeps ~40%.  Your also ignoring an important part, studios often exaggerate their production costs.  I remember listening to an audio commentary (can't recall the movie), and I believe it was Stephen Sommers (could have been someone else) saying to never believe the budget that studios site, since he had to make the movie for much less than what they told the public. He even gave an example of one of his earlier movies, which I believe they said cost nearly twice as much as it reallly did.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not trying to make a movie I like seem like it did better than the public peception is.  In fact, I've never seen the movie.  But, I know it probably made a slight profit, which still isn't good.