| Ryuu96 said: Deadline says the budget is $460m so unless the marketing budget was a near $1bn, which is so ridiculously unlikely, then $2bn to break even doesn't make a single bit of sense, I don't even think Avatar 2 has been advertised that much more than your typical major Disney film, at least from what I've seen. Even if it was a large marketing budget, nobody is spending a near $1bn on marketing when the average is around $150-$200m, Infinity War and End Game were in that range too. I'm very confident in saying that Avatar 2 has either already broken even or maybe even profiting already, as it has already crossed $1bn. Cameron didn't actually say $2bn though, here is the exact quote. Cameron apparently told Disney and 20th Century Studios executives that his sequel budget was so high it represented "the worst business case in movie history." According to the director's estimates, "you have to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history. That's your threshold. That's your break even." Notice how he doesn't actually say when he told Disney/Fox this? It doesn't make much sense that he told them this in 2022, the quote fits better as what he told the execs at the time of pitching the film, which was in 2012 - 2013 so that would have been between $1.3bn - $1.5bn for the "third or fourth highest grossing films" That still sounds too high to me though, so I think he could also simply be overhyping how massive the film is to get people to go out and see it, or the dude doesn't actually know off the top of his head what the 3rd-4th highest grossing films are and just threw that random range out there because it sounded large enough, Lol. Nobody is greenlighting a film that needs $2bn just to break even, not even Disney. |
Well, you have to remember that not all of the box office goes to Disney, the movie theaters/cinemas get a cut of all box office, which last I heard was around 30%, and then any actors or production crew that negotiated for a percentage of royalties get a cut too.
For the purposes of example. Let's say that the production budget was on the high end at the maximum estimate of $460m. Then you have the P&A (printing and advertising) budget, let's estimate it was $400m (no idea how big it actually was, Disney hasn't said). That is $860m combined. Let's say the movie ends it's run at around $1.6b. You then minus the 30% theater/cinema cut from that, which gets you $1.12b in revenue going to Disney. Then let's say that Cameron himself, as well as 2 of the actors on the film, each managed to negotiate a 1% royalty deal on the movie, that would be another 3% removed from the revenue, that should be $1.08b in revenue for Disney, against the combined production-marketing budget of $860m, for a profit of $220m for Disney.
So yeah, I think you might be right that Cameron was talking about needing to be 3rd or 4th place at the box office to break-even back in 2012-2013, rather than 3rd of 4th place now. It's also worth noting that he said 7th or 8th place is the break even in a different interview at the red carpet premiere, which seems to have been referring to 7th or 8th place in the modern box office, as opposed to the earlier quote referring to him telling Fox execs in 2012-2013 that 3rd or 4th place was the break even. But even 7th or 8th place in modern box office would be $1.6b ish just to break even, and that still seems too high to me, unless the marketing budget is much higher than the $400b estimate I gave above.
Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 28 December 2022
