I'll try to find a link, but I read it in one of the trades. If I
stumble across it again I'll scan it for you. I read in the New York
Post that Snakes Down the Drain promotional budget may been as much as
$50 million, but most likely a substantial percentage of that was
never spent as it would have been saved for adds for week two, three,
four, and well, that seems kind of pointless now so they're likely to
take their snakes and go home. Promotional budgets used to be easy to
find, even bragged about, but they've become more tight lipped about it.
Snakes on a Plane is basically suffering the same fate as Serenity,
but this time New
Line Cinema is suffering right alone with them while Universal more or
less bailed on Serenity. To me they're similar because both had a
rabid internet fanbase determined to give it a huge opening weekend
and make it the number one film. However, a very vocal but ultimately
small fanbase does not necessarily excite everyone else into watching.
Opening at about $10 million, with a total of $39 worldwide it was
considered a complete loss.
But that rabid fanbase came out in force for the DVD. It sold more
than 2 million copies on DVD after only a few weeks on the market, and
produced more than $9 million in rentals. There's even been talk of a
sequel, designed for the STV market, this is the reason I wouldn't be
surprised by the same for Snakes on a Plane. I mean, if Bring it On
has spawned not one but 2 direct to DVD sequels, and both have been
extremely succesful, why not Snakes on a Train? Ron
*/JR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>/* wrote:
Ron,
Thanks for the link to bigscreenbiz.com... lots of interesting
stuff. But where did you find the figure for the publicity budget
for MI 3 -- and is there a place where we can find out the PR
budget for other films? I'm dying to know how much they spent on
all those TV commercials for MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN... I mean SNAKES
ON A PLANE.
-- JR
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Ron Wisberg <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*To:* [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Wednesday, August 23, 2006 19:47
*Subject:* Re: [MOPO] Behind the Blow
There is also a matter of booking agents that can be thrown into
the mix and can alter everything. I know the closest theater to me
has an agent that works a deal where studios get 65% of the first
two weeks. If a distributor will not go for this then they will
not show the film. The booking agent of course gets paid a fee for
negotiating this but it's well worth it. This theater doesn't show
any movie for more than four weeks (it's a matter of number of
screens) and for weeks three and four the studios receive 30%. I
have been involved with the financial side of this theater and
that's the way it operates. This was true for Kong, DaVinci, Lion
the Witch and Wardrobe, Cars, as well as Descent and John Tucker
Must Die, big films and small films alike.
Will this be different for other theaters and other distributors?
Yes. But at that theater if they won't do that deal they won't
show the movie. A resource to find out more about that end of the
business is here.
http://www.bigscreenbiz.com/cgi-bin/ultimate.cgi
Some distributors actually demand an up front advance on what the
box office is likely to be. But that's generally for event films
and theaters don't mind paying it, they'll get it back in the end
if not through tickets then through popcorn. Of course, with the
declining health of event films some are starting to drag their
feet on this, and for good reason.
This is all thrown out the window when it comes to foreign
distribution. They operate in their own world. Even someone as big
as Paramount doesn't distribute in most countries and they use
foreign distributors that are going to take about 15-25% in
addition to what the theater takes. And this isn't just for a
country like Chad, this is for countries like the UK.
MI3 had a $40 million marketing budget and a $150 million
production budget. A studio is going to walk away with about 40%
of foreign distribution and about 55% of domestic.
So rounding to $104 million from foreign and $73 million domestic.
About $177 million. Of course, the film is profitable. Cable, DVD,
pay-per-view, all of that will push it over the edge. Far over the
edge. Of course, Cruise/Wagner Productions receives 10% of that
profit when it happens, J.J. Abrams gets a small cut, and several
others will at least get a taste.
But studios don't want that much money tied up in a production for
such a long time without huge and quick returns. Who can blame
them? I'm sure they thought it was a no brainer that this would
out perform MI:2. Perhaps they should use their brains a little
more. Ron
*/JR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>/* wrote:
Ron (and others),
Thanks for your take on this. In continuing my research, I did
find this article:
http://money.cnn.com/2002/03/08/smbusiness/q_movies/
Which echoes what you said, but has somewhat different
numbers... specifically:
"During the film's opening week, the studio might take 70 to
80 percent of gross box office sales. By the fifth or sixth
week, the percentage the studio takes will likely shrink to
about 35 percent, said Steven Krams, president of
International Cinema Equipment Co. "
I also found several references to how George Lucas managed to
get a full 100% (!) of the box office take for the first two
weeks of the last two STAR WARS films. So, apparently there is
nothing like a "standard" deal and each film gets negotiate
for how much the studio will get and how much the theater will
get.
For working purposes, it seems we would be safe enough to say
that, on average, the studio gets 75% of the box-office take
for the first two weeks, then 60% for the third, 50% for the
fourth, on down to the where the studio is only getting about
35% if the film lasts 6 weeks. That gives us something to go
on when trying to gauge "how much money a film made" in
comparison to its reported "production budget" (which is, of
course, often vastly over-inflated by Hollywood accounting
practices).
I don't think there's going to be anyway for regular folk
to be able to figure out with much accuracy how much a studio
spends for publicity for a given film... the best we could do
would be to come up with a guess.
Still, I think it is reasonable to assume that if a film does
twice it's production budget that it has at least broken even
for the studio, particularly if it does that in the first 2 to
3 weeks, when the studio is getting the lion's share of the
box-office take.
On that basis, MI III made money:
Production Budget = $150 million
Total Box Office (11 weeks) = $393,162,011
... looks like even figuring in $30 million for Promotion and
cutting the studio's take of the remaining $63 million in
half, that the film made AT LEAST 30 million in profit for
Paramount (and that's *before* any DVD sales, pay-per-view,
rentals and TV sales... which could easily bring in another
$100 to $200 million). Seems like claims that MI III "didn't
make money" are grossly exaggerated.
OK, not as much as MI 2, but that film was 6 years ago and
even though not as good as the original, was apparently far
better than MI III (which I have not seen).
But let's take a look at the other Tom Cruise film that came
out within the past year, WAR OF THE WORLDS:
Production Budget = $132 million
Total Box Office (21 weeks) = $591 million
....that had a bigger Promotion budget than MI III, let's call
it $50 million. That leaves $277 million of which we'll figure
the studio got 50%...for about $138 million in profit.
So, it seems Tom Cruise's last two films... just within the
past year... "only" made for Paramount something like $170 -
$200 million in theater profits alone (and what, twice that in
DVD and other sales)? Maybe $300 to $400 million TOTAL in the
past year or so alone? Well, heck... No wonder Paramount
dumped him. I mean, somebody who can only bring in $300 to
$400 million a year in profits just isn't pulling his weight...
Only in Hollywood.
But the truth of the matter seems that if one digs below the
talk show jive, the politically-correct knee-jerk outrage over
"women troubles" and other such Entertainment Tonight chatter,
that Tom Cruise's "star" still has quite a bit of luster left,
even if he is aging a bit (which didn't hurt the careers
of Sean Connery or Harrison Ford or many others)
I'm sure there are other people who can run even tighter, more
accurate numbers than mine and come to the same conclusion, so
it's no wonder that Cruise/Wagner productions was able to
announce that they have already lined up a $100 million dollar
revolving line of credit for their independent production
company's future operations.
I sure hope for the sake of Viacom's shareholders that Sumner
Redstone has a couple of mega-star rabbits hidden in his desk
drawer somewhere to replace those "weak" profits Cruise has
been making for him.
-- JR
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