Profitability of Star Trek Movies

[BillJ]

A lot don't(see MGM), that's why a lot have merged in to bigger more powerful studios that can sustain a hit if a movie doesn't live up to it's projections, like others have said there are other considerations that come into play when green lighting a sequel
Additionally the studio doesn't operate in vacuum with only one movie, it's not a all or nothing proposition, money made on one movie will help the studio when another isn't as successful as hoped.

And a lot of studios do survive.

The thing is, unless you are privy to information not available on the internet, information that is usually reserved to the finance department/board room of a major studio, you just don't know. Just like the rest of us. You're taking vague (and likely wrong) information and trying to pass judgement on a pair of movies you don't like. Which you are very much entitled to do. But you completely ignore people who are trying to have a conversation with you and pointing to the flaws in your logic. Which, again, you are very much entitled to do. But what you're doing is obviously not coming from an educated point-of-view.

Whatever happened to Roberto Orci directing Star Trek 3 had nothing to do with the performance of Star Trek Into Darkness. Paramount was happy enough with the course the franchise was on to originally name Orci director/writer of Star Trek 3.

The proof is in the pudding as far as the performance of Star Trek Into Darkness goes. We are getting Star Trek 3.

 

[Giarc1982]

There will be an another Spiderman, that doesn't mean Amazing Spiderman 2 was a success

 

[Smellmet]

Except that it was - it made $708.9 million worldwide. Granted, the numbers aren't as big as some of the previous entries, but that is still big league blockbuster numbers.

 

[BillJ]

There will be an another Spiderman, that doesn't mean Amazing Spiderman 2 was a success

If the box office totals are remotely accurate ($700 million worldwide), there is no way it wasn't a success.

Seems you skipped all the posts about Hollywood accounting. But let's say you are right, what does Sony (or Paramount with Star Trek) have to gain by continuing to flush money down the toilet?

 

[Giarc1982]

There will be an another Spiderman, that doesn't mean Amazing Spiderman 2 was a success

If the box office totals are remotely accurate ($700 million worldwide), there is no way it wasn't a success.

Yeah there is a way, if it cost them $701m+ to make that $700m it would of made a loss

 

[BillJ]

There will be an another Spiderman, that doesn't mean Amazing Spiderman 2 was a success

If the box office totals are remotely accurate ($700 million worldwide), there is no way it wasn't a success.

Yeah there is a way, if it cost them $701m+ to make that $700m it would of made a loss

Yeah. I can tell this is no longer a rational conversation. Plus, you cut the question out of my post.

But let's say you are right, what does Sony (or Paramount with Star Trek) have to gain by continuing to flush money down the toilet?

You don't see Disney willing to make another John Carter movie. You didn't see Paramount lining up to make another Star Trek movie after Nemesis.

 

[Smellmet]

There will be an another Spiderman, that doesn't mean Amazing Spiderman 2 was a success

If the box office totals are remotely accurate ($700 million worldwide), there is no way it wasn't a success.

Yeah there is a way, if it cost them $701m+ to make that $700m it would of made a loss

Are you suggesting that The Amazing Spider Man 2 cost nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to make?

 

[Melakon]

Seems you skipped all the posts about Hollywood accounting.

A few examples are in this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

• Although Return of the Jedi had a budget of $32.5 million and earned $475 million at the box office, it has never shown a profit.
• Spiderman (2002) earned over $800 million, but made no profit.
• The Tolkien estate was to receive a percentage of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy's $6 billion of gross receipts, but the films made no profit.

 

[BillJ]

Seems you skipped all the posts about Hollywood accounting.

A few examples are in this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

• Although Return of the Jedi had a budget of $32.5 million and earned $475 million at the box office, it has never shown a profit.
• Spiderman (2002) earned over $800 million, but made no profit.
• The Tolkien estate was to receive a percentage of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy's $6 billion of gross receipts, but the films made no profit.

On the Tolkien bit, shouldn't that be net receipts?

 

[Melakon]

According to the article, they went for gross. This seems to be a common mistake when participants are unfamiliar with Hollywood book-keeping.

 

[fireproof78]

If the box office totals are remotely accurate ($700 million worldwide), there is no way it wasn't a success.

Yeah there is a way, if it cost them $701m+ to make that $700m it would of made a loss

Yeah. I can tell this is no longer a rational conversation. Plus, you cut the question out of my post.

But let's say you are right, what does Sony (or Paramount with Star Trek) have to gain by continuing to flush money down the toilet?

You don't see Disney willing to make another John Carter movie. You didn't see Paramount lining up to make another Star Trek movie after Nemesis.

If the box office totals are remotely accurate ($700 million worldwide), there is no way it wasn't a success.

Yeah there is a way, if it cost them $701m+ to make that $700m it would of made a loss

Are you suggesting that The Amazing Spider Man 2 cost nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to make?

Yeah, I don't see how that is possible...

In addition, John Carter was a vanity project by one of Disney's execs, who thought the brand had enough recognition to not market it correctly (in addition to the other problems the film had). As BillJ noted, they are not doing that again.

Studios are very budget conscious because this is a volatile market right now, and audiences are more selective about where they spend their money (I know I am). So, the idea of throwing money away on a film is not unheard of, but not likely either.

 

[BillJ]

According to the article, they went for gross. This seems to be a common mistake when participants are unfamiliar with Hollywood book-keeping.

That confuses me. I thought the gross was all the revenue brought in and had nothing to do with profit?

 

[Melakon]

According to the article, they went for gross. This seems to be a common mistake when participants are unfamiliar with Hollywood book-keeping.

That confuses me. I thought the gross was all the revenue brought in and had nothing to do with profit?

That's probably what the estate was thinking, but they still got screwed.

 

[Mudd]

It's the other way around - you want to be cut in for a percentage of the gross; there's never a net profit. "Percentage of the net" has been rather famously referred to as "monkey points."

 

[BigJake]

Are you suggesting that The Amazing Spider Man 2 cost nearly three quarters of a billion dollars to make?

While that would be obviously ridiculous, he's correct that ASM2 was a big disappointment domestically. It made the bulk of its money on the international market. (Also true of projects like STID or Michael Bay's Transformer movies. They're really movies made for an age in which the "domestic" market's relative importance to big screen, big-budget cinema is declining; in any prior era, when "domestic" ticket sales were make or break, they would all have been career-ending or at the very least career-damaging bombs.)

So, the really key question for long-term success is how long the international market (especially China, which is actively trying to promote its home-grown film industry) is going to want movies like this. There's a big question mark hanging over that, it's far from a certainty.

 

[Sindatur]

Girac1982, you are correct that, a Studio must report it's real overall P&L for Tax purposes and to Shareholders.

However, as has been pointed out over and over again, the Studio doesn't have to (nor want to) show the real numbers on individual projects, because they have deals on each individual Project that are paid out based upon Profit, so, they do not want show real profits on each Project, because they want to pay as little as they can get away with on those percentage deals.

Also, as has been pointed out, Marketing, is budgeted for each Division, for the Quarter (Half or Fiscal Year), not by Project, and then they spend that Budget according to what they believe is needed for each individual Project. That Marketing money is going to be spent somewhere, regardless.

So, what they do, when a movie makes too much Profit, is they charge off as much Marketing and other expenses as they can against that individual project, so they can keep more of that profit, and pay less on their percentage deals against that project because it now shows little or no profit. This is the "Hollywood Accounting" everyone is referring to.

How much do you think JJ earned for Product Placement? Do you believe that money got used in addition to the posted Budget, or reduced the posted Budget? No, of course not, it got sent to the P&L as another Revenue stream and not reported against Revenue intake or reduction of Cost for the individual movies.

 

[M'Sharak]

lol, no need to be so defensive...

lol, your all so defensive...

I find it shocking that people can be so hurt by these figures...

For me it's finally feeling like the "I told you so" moment, guess I'm enjoying it a bit

A bit too much, perhaps.

Here's an idea: why don't you try making this a more honest discussion - one without the hectoring tone and without all of those not-very-clever little digs and taunts? Heck, you could even drop the bullshit smokescreen of numbers and formulas; no one's buying into that in a major way, anyhow.

In fact, now would be a dandy time to start.

 

[thumbtack]

I liked the idea of Singer

Singer was considering joining Bryan Fuller's Trek pitch, which is also not set in the Prime Universe and also not likely to go anywhere.


.

 

[Cinema Geekly]

If memory serves STID (for me anyway) did worse because they spent more to make it and market it and as a result made less relative to how much extra they spent. On top of that it also had really tough competition the week before and the week after its release.

I fully expected it wasn't going to live up to its new budget.

And I'm not the least bit worried in Trek's future. As long as people keep going in droves and the movies are getting praised then they will keep making them. And even if they don't Trek couldn't get any worse off than it was after ENT was canned in which case I still have the entire library of Trek to enjoy.

 

[Amaris]

If memory serves STID (for me anyway) did worse because they spent more to make it and market it and as a result made less relative to how much extra they spent. On top of that it also had really tough competition the week before and the week after its release.

I fully expected it wasn't going to live up to its new budget.

And I'm not the least bit worried in Trek's future. As long as people keep going in droves and the movies are getting praised then they will keep making them. And even if they don't Trek couldn't get any worse off than it was after ENT was canned in which case I still have the entire library of Trek to enjoy.

I do remember someone saying some bigwig type person at Paramount was a bit disappointed in the numbers, but that never made sense to me. I mean, a Star Trek film sequel made a half a billion dollars, following on the trail of a totally revamped Star Trek movie also making a half a billion dollars. To me that sounds like success! I guess I'll never understand some executives.

After all, how many times have we seen sequels crash and burn? To me, getting a billion dollars on the box offices of two movies is stellar and to be celebrated!