Disney (and others) at the Box Office - Current State of Affairs

[DKampy]

The point always is stop making excuses for Disney mistakes

The do need them, want them, or care about them.

Pretty basic. Consumer/supplier thing

I don’t believe any of us say Disney never makes mistakes…. But differing of opinions is not excuses…. I will admit I
Am more of a wait and see… hope for the best…. As life is more enjoyable if you stay positive… that is not to say my eyes are not closed if Disney does something I don’t care for

I also don’t obsess over Bob Iger every waking moment…. But hey stay grumpy

 

[BrianLo]

[…]wait what 25%

Oh, geez. So 50% of the production budget is the "floor" for the average marketing budget of almost all movies, and on some really big movies (Barbie? Toy Story 6? Avatar 7?) they spend 80% to 100% of the production budget on marketing?

But for the purposes of this thread, we need to pretend that Disney only spends 25% of the production budget on global marketing for their mega-budget tentpole movies from Marvel, Lucas, WDAS, Pixar, etc.?

I do appreciate your willingness to engage on this topic @BrianLo, but I just can't make the equation 50% to 80% = 25% work inside my pea-sized brain. Granted, it's very late and I've been at the Pinot Noir again. But I'm going to stick with the historically established ballpark figure that a major movie studio spends 50% of a movie's production budget on global marketing.

And I'll just accept that 50% is often a lowball figure for the box office breakeven points, and for some of these movies it's even higher than what we're throwing around here.

I’m just trying to find some way to break through to you that a movie isn’t:

(Box Office - Production + inaccurate stab at marketing).

You can’t keep sticking to something that has yet to produce a result we can verify.

(60/40 splits of Box office -(2.5*budget)/2

No assumption about marketing, because marketing is highly elastic to performance.

Post-theatrical window marketing is a small fraction of the time and effort. It’s intellectually dishonest to suggest 50% of the marketing costs occur after the first weekend or two of a film’s release. So yes, this suggestion deserves ridicule.

How about 80% of production and 45% of marketing then?

Is it kind of stupid? You bet. But any logic went out 500 pages ago when we kept reverting to an equation that produced a useless number. Because of the sheer refusal to consider that ALL movies are budgeted against their entire front and back end runs.

One cannot be untangled from the other and I’m really not sure why it has to be. See my Disney parks ticket revenue analogy. Just use the validated thing from the 90’s and move on.

 

[BrianLo]

Did you miss my post about how we're not really looking to model reality in any detail because we don't know reality? Even the budget numbers that everything hinges off of in the first place don't necessarily match reality. Any rationalization given is just a simple warm fuzzy to try to make someone feel good about why a certain formula works or not. The reality is way more complex and beyond our ken here.

But. We've arrived at something that comes fairly close to what gets reported, so why not use it? Oh, I know why. Because it doesn't feel good.

Exactly. We don’t purport to know anything. Anything about costs, anything about revenue. Just a stab on the end.

It’s a very difficult leap of logic and I understand why it’s hard to break through. A lot of people are really stuck thinking 1.5X a production budget is what total costs are and that’s the first major fallacy. We know it’s multiples.

I thought some of the deadline sheets would break through; but here we are. I think justifying it really just makes it worse. Trying to explain it just makes it worse. At the end of the day we have three to four pieces of info - production budgets, box office, deadline sheets, financial studio outcomes. The rest is just… hard to break through and the other 90% obstinance.

 

[Disney Irish]

Exactly. We don’t purport to know anything. Anything about costs, anything about revenue. Just a stab on the end.

It’s a very difficult leap of logic and I understand why it’s hard to break through. A lot of people are really stuck thinking 1.5X a production budget is what total costs are and that’s the first major fallacy. We know it’s multiples.

I thought some of the deadline sheets would break through; but here we are. I think justifying it really just makes it worse. Trying to explain it just makes it worse. At the end of the day we have three to four pieces of info - production budgets, box office, deadline sheets, financial studio outcomes. The rest is just… hard to break through and the other 90% obstinance.

I don't even know why we're dancing around it anymore. We know the exact reason why it doesn't break through, its because any other metric is seen as trying to defend Disney and make them look good and they can't have that. So they stick to a formula that is shown to make Disney look bad even if its not close to accurate and around in circles we go.

 

[brideck]

its because any other metric is seen as trying to defend Disney and make them look good and they can't have that.

Which is just silly because saying that Snow White has essentially lost as much as The Marvels did in 2023 (which this formula indeed shows) is bad. The next two worst movies from the past 2.5 years lost about $100m less than each of those did.

But it's also true that Disney is pretty especially positioned to be able to absorb those kinds of failures. They've been doing it for decades.

 

[BrianLo]

I don't even know why we're dancing around it anymore. We know the exact reason why it doesn't break through, its because any other metric is seen as trying to defend Disney and make them look good and they can't have that. So they stick to a formula that is shown to make Disney look bad even if its not close to accurate and around in circles we go.

It’s vaguely in my nature and day job to repeat myself from various angles for the 20th time years later.

 

[Disney Irish]

Which is just silly because saying that Snow White has essentially lost as much as The Marvels did in 2023 (which this formula indeed shows) is bad. The next two worst movies from the past 2.5 years lost about $100m less than each of those did.

But it's also true that Disney is pretty especially positioned to be able to absorb those kinds of failures. They've been doing it for decades.

Exactly.

It’s vaguely in my nature and day job to repeat myself from various angles for the 20th time years later.

Me too, its why you see me doing the same thing and repeating things over and over even though its been discussed to death. But at a certain point we have to call it out, no reason to dance around it at that point.

 

[Disney Irish]

Thunderbolts* (New Avengers) continues to outpace Cap4 domestically and should hopefully overtake it sometime next week, maybe even this weekend.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Intentional misunderstanding is always super clever around these parts. The likes will be sure to roll in.

How’s chronic excuses making from a strawmen assembly line?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Thunderbolts* (New Avengers) continues to outpace Cap4 domestically and should hopefully overtake it sometime next week, maybe even this weekend.

Now it’s got some legs…they’re gonna “push through” and only post a $20-30 mil loss at the BO

They’re winning like a warlock from mars

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Exactly. We don’t purport to know anything. Anything about costs, anything about revenue. Just a stab on the end.

It’s a very difficult leap of logic and I understand why it’s hard to break through. A lot of people are really stuck thinking 1.5X a production budget is what total costs are and that’s the first major fallacy. We know it’s multiples.

I thought some of the deadline sheets would break through; but here we are. I think justifying it really just makes it worse. Trying to explain it just makes it worse. At the end of the day we have three to four pieces of info - production budgets, box office, deadline sheets, financial studio outcomes. The rest is just… hard to break through and the other 90% obstinance.

Every single time something doesn’t rack up $500 worldwide in the first 3 weeks…the same routine starts

The budget and costs becomes “negotiated down” and we question what the money making point is…I guess that becomes a warm glass of milk before bedtime?

But in the end…just more wheel spinning. This one is not worth doing the whole charade again.

Hell…it was done with Mufasa when that looked like a loser early…then two months later it was “just kidding…PSYCH!…I knew all along Disney wins!!!”

Nobody questioned the marketing costs, budget, and profitability of IO2…because the excuse engine got the day off. When this starts…the wash is objectively it’s not doing well.

Lather, rinse

 

[Disney Irish]

Now it’s got some legs…they’re gonna “push through” and only post a $20-30 mil loss at the BO

If it continues to outpace as it has that may not actually be a loss at the BO, but we'll see. Even if its a slight loss its not the end of the line for the movie, but I know you don't like to talk about that so we'll just leave it there.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

If it continues to outpace as it has that may not actually be a loss at the BO, but we'll see. Even if its a slight loss its not the end of the line for the movie, but I know you don't like to talk about that so we'll just leave it there.

Phantom D+ profits again?

The comp is cap 4…which is a loss

No point dancing here on prom night for the 1,000th time

 

[DKampy]

Every single time something doesn’t rack up $500 worldwide in the first 3 weeks…the same routine starts

The budget and costs becomes “negotiated down” and we question what the money making point is…I guess that becomes a warm glass of milk before bedtime?

But in the end…just more wheel spinning. This one is not worth doing the whole charade again.

Hell…it was done with Mufasa when that looked like a loser early…then two months later it was “just kidding…PSYCH!…I knew all along Disney wins!!!”

Nobody questioned the marketing costs, budget, and profitability of IO2…because the excuse engine got the day off. When this starts…the wash is objectively it’s not doing well.

Lather, rinse

Maybe it’s because when a Disney movie becomes an obvious blockbuster…. Certain posters get very quiet…. But then pipe up when there is a narrative to spin Disney as a failing brand…. And that narrative is corrected by others

 

[Disney Irish]

Phantom D+ profits again?

The comp is cap 4…which is a loss

No point dancing here on prom night for the 1,000th time

You know there is a whole world of profits for a movie post-theatrical beyond just D+ right? Like digital/dvd, PVOD, airlines/hotels, other streaming services, and finally cable (for example TNT still paying a lot of have all the rights to the MCU movies including new releases). And then last on that list is D+ which yes does bring in money for a movie.

I figure the floor on an MCU movie post-theatrical is between $50-100M for movies like Cap4 and Thunderbolts. So yeah that loss during the BO isn't really a loss at the end of the day, but go ahead and keep spinning on that dance floor like you do.

 

[coffeefan]

Quoting this directly from Disney's financial report:

The Company incurs significant marketing and advertising costs before and throughout the theatrical release of a film in an effort to generate public awareness of the film, to increase the public’s intent to view the film and to help generate consumer interest in the subsequent home entertainment and other ancillary markets. These costs are expensed as incurred, which may result in a loss on a film in the theatrical markets, including in periods prior to the theatrical release of the film.

 

[Disney Irish]

Quoting this directly from Disney's financial report:

The Company incurs significant marketing and advertising costs before and throughout the theatrical release of a film in an effort to generate public awareness of the film, to increase the public’s intent to view the film and to help generate consumer interest in the subsequent home entertainment and other ancillary markets. These costs are expensed as incurred, which may result in a loss on a film in the theatrical markets, including in periods prior to the theatrical release of the film.

So you mean that Disney actually is ok with and expects a movie to lose money during theatrical, hmm, that counters what several posters claim Disney is thinking.

Guess it really is a brave new world in the realm of the box office.

 

[TP2000]

I’m just trying to find some way to break through to you that a movie isn’t:

(Box Office - Production + inaccurate stab at marketing).

You can’t keep sticking to something that has yet to produce a result we can verify.

(60/40 splits of Box office -(2.5*budget)/2

No assumption about marketing, because marketing is highly elastic to performance.

I don't think 50% of the production budget is an inaccurate stab at marketing. I was open to the idea that there was some new formula or business model Burbank and other major studios were now using that only required them to spend 25% of a movie's production budget on marketing, but no one seems able to provide a link or industry source on that.

If anything, 50% is a slightly lowball figure since Burbank has a famously wide-reaching marketing machine at its disposal, and isn't afraid to spend big marketing money on its mega-budget tentpoles (like the $140 Million that Disney said they spent on The Little Mermaid with a production budget of $250 Million).

Massive Film Marketing Spends Are Back as Summer Tentpole Season Kicks Off

As studios roll the dice on pricey campaigns amid an ultra-competitive, jam-packed summer, the strife at Netflix only bolsters the notion that sustained promotion and an exclusive run in cinemas "builds a brand" for features.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Marketing Costs Often Exceed Film Production

Expenses for marketing films released to cinemas often exceed cost of producing those films in a Deadline.com analysis of 2023 blockbusters.

marketingmovies.net

I've tried to find some industry source online that says marketing is now only 25% of production, but I can't. Have you been able to find an industry source you can link to that explains why movie studios in the 2020's now only spend 25% of their production budgets on marketing, when they had historically spent an average of 50%?

In the meantime, someone here needs to ask to speak to a Google manager and get them to stop spreading lies and misinformation like this...

 

[TP2000]

Which is just silly because saying that Snow White has essentially lost as much as The Marvels did in 2023 (which this formula indeed shows) is bad. The next two worst movies from the past 2.5 years lost about $100m less than each of those did.

Both Snow White and The Marvels had the same production budgets and had the same box office results, give or take a million or two. So, of course they're going to essentially lose just as much money.

But it's also true that Disney is pretty especially positioned to be able to absorb those kinds of failures. They've been doing it for decades.

Even adjusted for inflation, something tells me the profit/loss statements on The Apple Dumpling Gang and Herbie Goes Bananas wasn't quite as alarming to look at as the profit/loss statements on Snow White and The Marvels.

https://thenumbers.com/movies/custom-comparisons/Disneys-Snow-White-(2025)/Marvels-The-(2023)?mode=actuals#tab=day_by_day_comparison

 

[TP2000]

Okay gang, before we kick this weekend into party mode , let's do a quick update on Thursday's preview box office. Thunderbolts looks to be keeping its 4,330 theaters this weekend, and Snow White looks to be keeping her 1,300 theaters as well.

Thunderbolts needs a very strong third weekend to keep a momentum towards something north of $450 Million globally that could potentially get it to breakeven by June. And Snow White, well, she just needs to go away. But check back Sunday to see where they all land!

The Numbers - Daily Box Office Chart for Tuesday September 23, 2025

Daily Domestic Box Office Chart for Tuesday September 23, 2025

thenumbers.com