By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
EB1994 on 17 April 2014
Edit Thread
binary solo said:

Where are you getting industry fiigures from? According to boxofficemojo the movie studio gets ~55% of the gross, so the typical break-even for the studio is
~180% of the production budget not 400%. I recall back when Waterworld came out to had an outrageoulsy huge budget, for the time, of $175 million (inflation huh?) and industry commentators said it was stupidlyi expensive and it would have to make almost $400 million at the boxoffice to break even. That's only 228% of budget for what was at the time the one of most expensive movie ever made ($100 million was considered expensive, which is what Batman Forever cost that same year). Also consider, why would the resident Evil franchise have made 4 movies when the cinema run of the first movie fell $20 million short of 4x production budget? With that small of an audience the DVD sales would not have been enough to make up the difference and get into reasonable profit, and there was no other merchandising of any substance. But the worldwide gross made well in excess of 2x production budget, enough in fact that the 2nd movie could be 50% funded from the box office takings of the first, hence the production budget of the 2nd movie was 50% more than the first. You wouldn't increase the production budget for the sequel to a movie that was a box-office flop. You would if it made a reasonable profit at the box office.

If a movie has to make 4xproduction budget to break even for the studio then Hollywood would be bankrupt because very few big budget movies get to that point, most fall way short of that sort of figure and even though DVD/BR sales are almost all profit per disc profit the actual gross earnings are not that big. And only some movies have genuine merchandising prospect beyond DVD/BR sales.

However I wouldn't be surprised if the studios want their blockbuster hits to make 4xproduction budget in order to off-set the losses made by movies that fail to make 2xproduction budget, of which there are quite a few every year.

As to the Amazing Spiderman 2, I don't have very high hopes for it. The latest re-boot was a tad lame compared to the Toby Macguire re-boot, which was a bit of a visual spectacle at the time. So while it will make hundreds of millions of dollars I think it may struggle to be a financial success. I notice that boxoffice mojo doesn't have a production budget for it.

Did you read my post? Maybe then you'll find out where I found those numbers from.

I ain't reading this essay you wrote. Thanks though.