Suicide Squad: 750 - 800 Million needed to break even?

[fielding88]

thismeintiel said:

fielding88 said:

I'm probably missing something, but how is it not what we're talking about here? One article even clearly mentions talk of the marketing budget (which the article actually said were 'mostly' legit numbers):

"A studio funds A Movie with a production budget of $100 million. It sets up AMovieCo Inc. and gives it the production budget money. The studio then spends another $50 million on marketing and puts that down as an expense as well -- though, with some of the big studios, some of this money involves paying itself for advertising on its own properties. Still, even if we assume that's real money spent, you might think that AMovieCo now needs to make back $150 million to be profitable. But... the studio (which, again, controls AMovieCo completely) then tacks onto all of that, say, a $250 million "distribution fee." Now, while there may be some money spent on actually distributing the film, the number is almost completely bogus, and much higher than the actual expense for the studio. Very little actual money needs to change hands here -- it's just a fee on the books (a fee they are effectively charging to themselves). And it's not just "distribution" but a variety of additional charges. On top of that, the studio may then charge "interest" on that money, even though it's really just lending money to itself. What it all means is that rather than becoming profitable at ~$150 million (the actual money spent), AMovieCo now needs to earn over $400 million before anyone with a cut of the profits sees an additional dime from the movie, thanks to completely imaginary accounting entries on the books. "

I mean I'm no accountant or anything, but I'm curious: If we're talking about movies breaking even in this thread, and then you read that paragraph above, aren't they talking about similar things? I know the article is specifically looking at things like paying out money to people once a movie turns a profit, but look at how the money is trading hands here...isn't that also part of the breaking even problem? Combined with not taking a 100% cut from the box office revenues of course.

Reread that paragraph.  It is stating that the production budget and marketing budget are legit costs.  That's all we are talking about.  From the insiders, who probably have a damn good idea what this costs to advertise, they are saying its production and marketing budget together are probably close to $400M.  

What that article is talking about is additional (fake) fees the studio tacks on after those budgets to try and make it look like it cost even more.  This is mainly done to cut directors and actors out of any type of "x% of profit from the movie's net income" clause they may have in their contract.  This would probably make it seem the movie cost almost a billion to make and advertise.

An example I saw in another thread was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2.  The production budget was $250M.  Let's just say the advertising budget was $150M, which gives us a total of $400M, as well.  The movie made over $1.3B WW.  That means the studio saw $670M-$740M, or $270M-$340M in profit. However, with the addition of their bogus fees, they were able to make it look like they lost money on the movie, which is complete BS.  Like I said, this practice should really be made illegal.

Having re-read the paragraph, I'm not seeing where it states that those are legit costs. The paragraph clearly states that marketing costs can often include paying itself for advertising, so I don't understand how that number is going to be on the up and up. And with the way they can clearly cook those books, I don't see why anybody should trust nameless insiders who have a damn good idea on what this costs to advertise and how to actually do the things mentioned.

I'm with you on the production budget, and I totally understand the fake fees in the article being a separate discussion, but the marketing budget hasn't proven to be a legit cost, and there's evidence to suggest otherwise. In about the early 2000s, BOM would frequently list production budgets along with marketing costs on their movies, but those numbers were often quite low, and nowadays, very hard to even come by. Perfect example is your Harry Potter example. Production budget is easy to state, marketing costs not so much. I see no reason to put faith in those numbers (the marketing budget numbers, not your hypothetical Harry Potter example).