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

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easyrowrdw

Well-Known Member
coffeefan said:
On the worldwide D+ chart, Thunderbolts is at #1 and the FF preview is at #2. So there is measurable interest, but like the article said, a significant number of people prefer to wait for streaming. This is for a variety of factors, including economic.
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Sure. I was wondering more about the reason for the change. It went from 25% to 36% in a matter of weeks - the exact timeline isn’t clear, but it seems short. Either way, it is a decently sized increase.

I could see it being a response to the typical lull in fall rather than a more permanent number. We’ll see how the holiday releases turn out.
 
LSLS

LSLS

Well-Known Member
Disney Irish said:
I'm sorry but what?

The idea with the 2.5x is that it takes the marketing out of the equation, because the marketing spend on a film isn't isolated to just theatrical. So for example to use your numbers, that $100M might not be all spent on marketing just for theatrical, only $75M might be and $25M spent on post-theatrical, or it could be more or less. But do you attribute that to your theatrical breakeven even if you aren't spending that for the theatrical space? No of course not, because that would require a higher box office than is needed to cover the theatrical spend. Its why we also don't account for the interest and overhead either. So the moral of the story is the .5 is to account for the marketing of the theatrical spend only.

This is what we tried to tell other posters here many times when they kept trying to state a specific marketing amount and use it for their calculation. We're finally back to everyone using the 2.5x rule of thumb metric, so lets not try to start this debate again.
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Ok, definitely possible I don't understand that number. I always thought the 2.5 was a way to estimate how much they need to make to cover the production plus the marketing. But when we started hearing the recent marketing numbers, they have been much higher than that 2.5 would indicate. But, with this Superman release, did that really include the post-theatrical release for marketing numbers before it was done from theaters? And it feels surprising that they would spend $50 million for the release, then ANOTHER $50 million after it's theatrical run.
 
Disney Irish

Disney Irish

Premium Member
LSLS said:
Ok, definitely possible I don't understand that number. I always thought the 2.5 was a way to estimate how much they need to make to cover the production plus the marketing. But when we started hearing the recent marketing numbers, they have been much higher than that 2.5 would indicate. But, with this Superman release, did that really include the post-theatrical release for marketing numbers before it was done from theaters? And it feels surprising that they would spend $50 million for the release, then ANOTHER $50 million after it's theatrical run.
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The question is do "we" here really know what $50M marketing actually covers? Or do "we" know what $100M of marketing actually "feels" like? The answer is none of us actually do, we guess.

The point is that just because "we" see a movie advertised "everywhere" doesn't mean its costing more to market, it could be that "we" happen to be in the target audience for that marketing which is why we seem to see it everywhere.

Now all of that is to say that doesn't mean studios aren't spending more on marketing in specific cases, they probably are, especially for large budget movies. The 2.5x metric though is about averages, not specific movies. Yes it doesn't cover every outlier but it does on average come out correct. @BrianLo for example will post when he feels that something needs a different multiplier, like Stitch for example which appeared to be more of a 3x rather than the traditional 2.5x because of all the extra marketing they did late into its run. So the point is we use 2.5x to average out everything, and adjust on those individual movies that seem to be the outlier.
 
BrianLo

BrianLo

Well-Known Member
LSLS said:
Ok, definitely possible I don't understand that number. I always thought the 2.5 was a way to estimate how much they need to make to cover the production plus the marketing. But when we started hearing the recent marketing numbers, they have been much higher than that 2.5 would indicate. But, with this Superman release, did that really include the post-theatrical release for marketing numbers before it was done from theaters? And it feels surprising that they would spend $50 million for the release, then ANOTHER $50 million after it's theatrical run.
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It’s confusing. But it’s about the relationship behind all the sources of profit minus all the sources of costs. But it’s not actually calculating costs. It’s just a rule to estimate what the studio is left with at the end of the day using the only two variables we have.

If you want to know total movie costs they tend to be 2X production budget for the middle of the road budgeted tentpoles (200M). 1.75X if they are inappropriately expensive films (like 250+M). Or 2.5X for strangely low budgeted things (100M tentpoles like stitch).

Meaning the all in costs (production, marketing, interest, overhead, residuals, participation) on something like Fantastic 4 is more like 400M-ish. So if you really wanted to have the movie exclusively covered by box office it would need 800M. But I’ve argued that’s meaningless.
 
Disney Irish

Disney Irish

Premium Member
BrianLo said:
Meaning the all in costs (production, marketing, interest, overhead, residuals, participation) on something like Fantastic 4 is more like 400M-ish. So if you really wanted to have the movie exclusively covered by box office it would need 800M. But I’ve argued that’s meaningless.
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This is the part that I don't think many here understand (or in some cases refuse to understand for reasons), they think unless a movie covers all costs during theatrical its a failure when that couldn't be further from the truth. Its very rare for that to occur, and even rarer for large budget movies. And this has been true for many many decades, longer than most of us have been alive. I would imagine its only the highest grossing movies of all time (before inflation) that ever covered every cost during theatrical. The vast majority (98%?) however have always, always, relied on some post-theatrical revenue to cover every costs. Some want to call that an "excuse" but its the reality of the movie business.
 
BrianLo

BrianLo

Well-Known Member
Oh and one more clarification. I’m talking about the floor. When a movie is actually successful (Stitch) its costs continue to go up. They spend more on marketing, they have to pay out participation and residuals. But the relationship is preserved because back end scales accordingly.

So I would expect true all in costs on stitch to be a good chunk more than 250M.
 
BrianLo

BrianLo

Well-Known Member
Disney Irish said:
This is the part that I don't think many here understand
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I’ve come to accept it’s quite complicated and I understand the skepticism. I’m not trying to make bad films look good. I just think what the studio is truly left with in their pockets is a meaningfully what everyone is after.

If you want to make the films look bad I can do that too; even more effectively actually.
 
Disney Irish

Disney Irish

Premium Member
BrianLo said:
I’ve come to accept it’s quite complicated and I understand the skepticism. I’m not trying to make bad films look good. I just think what the studio is truly left with in their pockets is a meaningfully what everyone is after.

If you want to make the films look bad I can do that too; even more effectively actually.
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I mean its not called Hollywood Fuzzy Math because its easy. Its meant to be complicated so Hollywood doesn't have to show all their cards. Its been this way long before Eisner showed up on the scene and will still be here long after Iger leaves.

I mean there is a famous story that even to this day Lucas says many of his Star Wars film have never reached profitability. Which we know is almost impossible. But that is Hollywood Math.

Basically in the end Hollywood doesn't care what the dozen or so people here think with regards to whether a movie breaks even or not.
 
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Nevermore525

Well-Known Member

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