The 2.5x formula works if your global box office is
predominantly domestic and thus the studio rakes in 60% of the ticket sales. Which was often the case in the 20th century, before there were Starbucks in Beijing and Marvel toys for sale in Moscow.
Mufasa's overseas box office is $308 Million, compared to it's domestic tally of $168 Million. Overseas box office gets a much smaller take sent back to the American studio, estimated at 40%.
A movie like
Wicked, which has had strong domestic sales but has comparatively much weaker overseas sales, is going to pull in a profit faster than a
Mufasa that has almost a two-to-one split favoring overseas markets.
Mufasa: Production $200, Marketing $100, Domestic $101, Overseas $123 =
$76 Million Loss and narrowing
Wicked: Production $145, Marketing $75, Domestic $270, Overseas $92 = $142 Million profit and climbing
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What would you rather do... take 60% of the box office from a movie popular in America (
Wicked), or take 40% of the box office from a movie popular in Europe (
Mufasa)?