"John Carter of Mars" Moving Ahead!
- Thread starter Ptrope
- Start date
^Yeah that is good to hear.
Except that ignores the fact that the film won't turn a profit even when the boxoffice exceeds the budget+marketing costs, because not every dollar of tickets sales goes back to the studio. The theaters keep their cut, and typically the film has to make 1.8 to 2+ times its budget to break even.
That Forbes piece, which looks like it's from someone who blogs on geek culture for them rather than from one of their business writers, fails to take into account the revenue split between the studio and theatres, and that the split can be very poor in some foreign territories. The studio generally ends up with about 55% of domestic box office and 40-45% of international box office. China recently agreed to increase the percentage US studios get from Chinese box office to 25%, up from 13-17%. So John Carter is still a long way from turning a profit on its production budget, let alone on its total costs.
It really depends on the movie. Disney can make a deal with the domestic theater chains that says we start by getting 90% of the sales in week 1; week 2 we get 85%; then we move to 70%; maybe in week 14 the studio only takes 50% but by then no one is coming to your theater any more so there's no point. Studios make different deals per movie.
Doing the math (and using the high end of those percentages), the film still has a long way to go:
Revenue (Disney):
$84.6 million (foreign)
+ $36.3 million (domestic)
= $120.9 million (total)
$120.9 million (total revenue)
- $250 million (production budget)
- $100 million (prints/advertising budget)
= (-) $229.1 million
JoeD80 is right about the studios earning more money from the grosses in week one than later weeks, but the 55% average is usually about right. (Disney might get a bit more because so much of the movie's business occurred in weeks one and two).
Box office is a small part of the revenue stream provided by movies, however. Home video and especially TV is where the real money is made. The movie will make a profit -- just not a big one and not as quickly as Disney would like.
That's true. It generally works out to about 55% of total domestic box office over the course of a film's run, but that's just a broad rule of thumb.
In the local language, it's called "Bumhole" - pronounced "Boomholy".
This makes me wonder how soon will Disney pull the movie from theaters in order to concentrate on the DVD sales?
It's dropped from 3,749 screens to 1,015 in four weeks. It will run its course at the box office soon enough; I don't think Disney is going to pull the movie before then. They haven't even announced a release date for the title on home video, although you can pre-order it on certain sites, suggesting it won't be too long.
The release date for the John Cater DVD is June 5, 2012.
http://www.amazon.com/John-Carter-T.../ref=sr_tr_sr_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1334765724&sr=8-3
http://www.amazon.com/John-Carter-T.../ref=sr_tr_sr_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1334765724&sr=8-3
That's a full month earlier than I expected.
Only 3 months in the theaters. That is a quick turn around. But I will be happy to own this movie.
Isn't there something where if a movie bombs then a dvd comes out earlier?
It felt that way for Green Lantern. Maybe 3 months just passed by real quickly
It felt that way for Green Lantern. Maybe 3 months just passed by real quickly
doubleohfive
Fleet Admiral
Most movies are coming out on DVD/BR sooner these days, regardless of how well they do.
Green Lantern was released on DVD and Blu-ray four months after its theatrical release. That's the standard release window these days. John Carter will go to DVD/BR a month faster than the average.
Exactly. Seventeen weeks is the standard window. John Carter is thirteen or fourteen.
Disney has been pushing for a shorter window, though. When they announced plans for Alice in Wonderland to have a thirteen week window in the UK, they got pushback from the theaters who threatened not to show the film.
Same.
