Disney needs to get Fox's horror movies up ASAP. Usually low budged with some big potential at the BO (and sometimes licensing). New Predator sucked and was too expensive comparatively, but the franchise can be salvaged IMO. Here are some random Horror movies from the past couple of years, Universal and especially WBs are the leaders here and are cashing in.
Paramount:
A Quiet Place - Budget 17-21MM, 50MM OW, 188MM Domestic, 341MM WW
Pet Sematary - OW projected at around 28MM
Universal:
Us - Budget 20MM, OW projected at around 60MM
Get Out - Budget 4.5MM, 33 MM OW, 176MM Domestic, 255MM WW
Halloween - Budget 10MM, 76MM OW, 159MM Domestic, 254MM WW
Sony:
Escape Room - Budget 9MM, 18MM OW, 56MM Domestic, 143MM WW
Don't Breathe - Budget 9.9MM, 26MM OW, 89MM Domestic, 157MM WW
Warner:
Annabelle Creation - Budget 15MM, 35MM OW, 102MM Domestic, 306MM WW
It - Budget 35MM, 123MM OW, 327MM Domestic, 700MM WW
Fox:
Predator - Budget 88MM, OW 24MM, 51MM Domestic, 161MM WW
Disney-Fox is just the latest step in Marvel Studios reclaiming its heroes (and villains)
www.polygon.com
Great read if you haven’t seen it yet!
Maisel managed to raise $525 million — a majority from Merrill Lynch, with additional support from Paramount and Universal in exchange for distribution rights — to make 10 films, capped at a budget of $165 million each with a PG-13 requirement, based on what were then considered “
second-tier superheroes, who may not resonate with younger moviegoers.”
Paramount Pictures will market and distribute the movies, for a fee. (Universal Pictures, which made 2003’s “Hulk” by the director Ang Lee but sold back the rights to Marvel after its poor box-office performance, will handle that sequel.)
The financial model seems unusually favorable. Because most of the financing raised by Merrill Lynch (the $465 million revolving credit facility) is insured by Ambac Assurance, Marvel is not liable to repay its senior creditors if the movies tank. The Ambac deal uses the comic characters as collateral and thus requires no capital outlay by Marvel.
That's the first time I've seen this. If that report is correct than the original 525MM, 465MM coming from Merril Lynch and 60MM coming from Universal and Paramount. That helps untangle some of the Hulk rights and confirms it's in perpetuity. Disney bought the distribution rights Paramount owned for 115MM + 9% of the BO gross of Iron Man 3 IIRC. Assuming they paid 30MM it's quite a nice ROI. Disney could (and probably did) offer Universal a similar deal, but they probably said no. Only way those rights are coming back is if Disney buys Comcast out of their 30% of Hulu and gets the Marvel rights thrown into the equation.
Hence why Disney wanted this deal to happen. Every company wants their own service. After this merger Disney’s portfolio is arguably the best around.
Add a little cherry on top if they get Indy 1-4 distribution rights from Paramount and get Star Wars Clone Wars movie distribution rights from WBs if/when they buy the 10% of Hulu from them. They also own international distribution rights to something like Titanic, but not domestic (that's also with Paramount). I would think they'd like to get those if they could as well.
