By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Chris Hu on 29 December 2012
Edit Thread
thismeintiel said:
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.


With a $100 million dollar add campaign on top of the $250 million dollar budget there is no way John Carter made a profit no matter how you spin the numbers.  Also by the time a movie stops running it usually a 50/50 split between theaters and studios when it comes to a movies box office gross.  In some foreign countries the studios get a lot less then 50% of the movies gross most noticably China where the studios only get 25%.  Anyway since the budget for The Lone Ranger is listed at $250 million on wikipedia Disney is the front runner for having another big budget box office bomb in 2013.  I highly doubt Rich Ross who was the head of Walt Disney Studios when John Carter was released would have resiged if John Cater would have made a slight profit.  Disney looks especially bad on this list since Pan Am was on ABC which is owned by Disney even though the show wasn't produced by them it was made by Sony Pictures.