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Snowglobe of Doom
Mar 30, 2012

sucks to be right

Wizchine posted:

According to the article the film earned "just $167 million globally on a budget of $120 million." So even factoring in marketing and distribution costs, the film at least broke even.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell maybe ....

Remember this is Hollywood accounting we're talking about here, which is often a lot more creative and inventive than the films they're financing.

quote:

Winston Groom's price for the screenplay rights to his novel Forrest Gump included a 3% share of the profits; however, due to Hollywood accounting, the film's commercial success was converted into a net loss, and Groom received only $350,000 for the rights and an additional $250,000 from the studio.

quote:

Stan Lee, co-creator of the character Spider-Man, had a contract awarding him 10% of the net profits of anything based on his characters. The film Spider-Man (2002) made more than $800 million in revenue, but the producers claim that it did not make any profit as defined in Lee's contract, and Lee received nothing. In 2002 he filed a lawsuit against Marvel Comics.
Concepts such as 'breaking even' are more of a political/strategic matter than a financial matter when it comes to movies.

Snowglobe of Doom fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Dec 11, 2015

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Wizchine
Sep 17, 2007

Television is the retina
of the mind's eye.

Snowglobe of Doom posted:

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell maybe ....

Remember this is Hollywood accounting we're talking about here, which is often a lot more creative and inventive than the films they're financing.


Concepts such as 'breaking even' are more of a political/strategic matter than a financial matter when it comes to movies.

Right. I figure the shot-callers made their money, though and that's what's important in determining what they'll do with the property in the future.

tanglewood1420
Oct 28, 2010

The importance of this mission cannot be overemphasized
General rule of thumb is the studio takes 50% of domestic box office and a lower share of foreign markets depending on territory (around 40% for UK, closer to 25% for China etc.). Fant4stic took $56m in the US and $111m worldwide so I'd say Fox probably made back around $60-70m from the box office. Add on marketing costs to whatever the budget was and it's pretty certain that the movie lost money. Normally superhero movies do well on DVD/BluRay/Netflix etc. so you could maybe expect it to claw back into the black on the back of that, but word of mouth was so astonishingly bad for the film that I doubt it has much of an afterlife. Also Fox obviously can't rely on merchandising to pull through either as Marvel still controls all of that for the Fantastic Four.

Though to be honest, the best way to really know if a Hollywood movie made money or not is a) Do they greenlight a sequel? b) Do the director and lead cast get buzz in the following months and sign on to lots of new projects? In both cases, it's not looking good for Fantastic Four.

Snowglobe of Doom
Mar 30, 2012

sucks to be right

tanglewood1420 posted:

Though to be honest, the best way to really know if a Hollywood movie made money or not is a) Do they greenlight a sequel?

We should maybe clarify to: Do they greenlight a cinematic sequel? I've seen a few cases where they've cranked out a few straight-to-DVD sequels just so they can hang onto the rights for a few more years, like those lovely Dungeons & Dragons movies.

Edit: actually a cinematic release isn't even a good indicator of anything because there's films like Zyzzyx Road which got a cinema release in 1 cinema with one screening a day for just six days so it could meet SGA requirements and had a box office total of $30 (minus $10 the producer refunded to two cast members who'd gone to see it). Not exactly the high point of Katherine Heigl's acting career ...

Snowglobe of Doom fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Dec 12, 2015

Uncle Wemus
Mar 4, 2004

Snowglobe of Doom posted:

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell maybe ....

Remember this is Hollywood accounting we're talking about here, which is often a lot more creative and inventive than the films they're financing.


Concepts such as 'breaking even' are more of a political/strategic matter than a financial matter when it comes to movies.

How the hell does this happen. Not that i feel bad for stan lee but drat.

Snowglobe of Doom
Mar 30, 2012

sucks to be right

Uncle Wemus posted:

How the hell does this happen.


There's probably a few good books that expose all the Hollywood accounting bullshit but I've been avoiding diving into that rabbit hole

Tenzarin
Jul 24, 2007
.
Taco Defender

BrianWilly posted:

Constantine got mixed reviews, not unanimously bad ones, and was actually a financial success no matter what fans may have thought.

Not too sure about the money part.


I enjoyed it though, the movie is pretty rewatchable which goes a long way. Never heard of the comic before I saw it or even after I saw it.

Is the new FF on dvd yet? I haven't gotten to see it yet. It comes out on the 15th!

Edit: Just finished watching it, I'm not sure but I think its better than both the other movies. Which isn't saying much anyway.

Tenzarin fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Dec 12, 2015

oldpainless
Oct 30, 2009

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I liked Constantine. It was (licks fingers) finger lickin good

Snowman_McK
Jan 31, 2010
The long, continuous shot of Rachel Weis' character (or the twin sister) jumping from the roof was loving dope.

Justin Godscock
Oct 12, 2004

Listen here, funnyman!
It's weird how Constantine is a cult favorite nowadays (there are people legit pissed about the TV show getting canned) given how spergy nerds got in 2005 because it "wasn't true" or some poo poo. I don't listen to those people anymore because it's just blind anger substituting for why they don't have jobs or people skills.

Uncle Wemus posted:

How the hell does this happen. Not that i feel bad for stan lee but drat.

The world of finances is a black abyss that will suck you in which is why it took the law like a loving decade to understand how bad the banks hosed everyone in 2008.

not trolled not crying
Jan 29, 2007

21st Century Awezome Man

Snowglobe of Doom posted:



There's probably a few good books that expose all the Hollywood accounting bullshit but I've been avoiding diving into that rabbit hole

http://www.amazon.com/The-Hollywood-Economist-2-0-Financial/dp/1612190502

I'd recommend this. It has some insane stories in it too so it's not too depressing or headache inducing if that's what you fear.

Snowglobe of Doom
Mar 30, 2012

sucks to be right

Kush posted:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Hollywood-Economist-2-0-Financial/dp/1612190502

I'd recommend this. It has some insane stories in it too so it's not too depressing or headache inducing if that's what you fear.

I just ordered a copy online based on your recommendation, thanks!!

I also recently ordered a copy of "Hit and Run" by Nancy Griffin and Ken Masters which is all about how Jon Peters (that producer who wanted Superman to fight a giant spider in the infamous Kevin Smith story) rose to power in Hollywood. I watched the recent documentary about Tim Burton's failed "Superman Lives" project and Jon Peters is an absolutely fascinating trainwreck of a businessman.

Timby
Dec 23, 2006

Your mother!

Snowglobe of Doom posted:

I also recently ordered a copy of "Hit and Run" by Nancy Griffin and Ken Masters

Kim Masters. She also wrote the very questionably sourced Keys to the Kingdom takedown book about Michael Eisner about fifteen years ago.

Mat Cauthon
Jan 2, 2006

The more tragic things get,
the more I feel like laughing.



Just saw this on a LA to NYC flight and all I can say is I'm really glad this didn't crater MBJ's career. Half the plane was just laughing at the movie, especially all of the 'serious' scenes.

duz
Jul 11, 2005

Come on Ilhan, lets go bag us a shitpost


Uncle Wemus posted:

How the hell does this happen. Not that i feel bad for stan lee but drat.

We can see thanks to the paperwork filed in those lawsuits.
Example:

Basically they charge themselves various fees until there's no profit left.

Detective No. 27
Jun 7, 2006

So basically, studios do the Fallout 4 infinite bottecap glitch on themselves.

Chairman Capone
Dec 17, 2008

I remember when John Carter came out a few years back, there were people saying that Disney shuffled things around to put as much of their losses that year as possible on it so they could just point to it as the single cause.

tanglewood1420
Oct 28, 2010

The importance of this mission cannot be overemphasized
Yeah, all those costs in the budget breakdown for Potter above are real - they aren't quite just making stuff up out of thin air - but it will be shuffled from other subsidiary companies of Warner Bros. as much as possible to reduce profit on the film - which will be its own incorporated company separate from the WB mothership. So the distribution costs would have been paid for by WB's distribution arm, the advertising costs by their advertising subsidiary etc. but you shift it into Harry Potter 5 LLC.

Also the film will shift as much of its profits on the film as legally possible back to WB parent companies. Harry Potter 5 LLC will license it's US box office distribution to rights to Warner Bros. and will in payment cover all of WBs distribution costs, plus 20% of the box office fee.

There's a reason why the DGA, WGA and SAG in their collectively bargained deals with the studios specify gross and not net when determining points.

tanglewood1420 fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Dec 13, 2015

Justin Godscock
Oct 12, 2004

Listen here, funnyman!

Kush posted:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Hollywood-Economist-2-0-Financial/dp/1612190502

I'd recommend this. It has some insane stories in it too so it's not too depressing or headache inducing if that's what you fear.

I have this book as well (first version, don't know if this is accurate now) and the best was the balance sheet it had for Terminator 3 which revealed a LOT more money was spent on practical stuff and effects (Arnold was also a pricey motherfucker) than CGI (which accounted for a fraction) which, to me, seemed like the devil's advocate argument as to why studios rely on CGI.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/newreply.php?action=newreply&postid=453782362

duz posted:

We can see thanks to the paperwork filed in those lawsuits.
Example:

Basically they charge themselves various fees until there's no profit left.

For anyone that wants the tl;dr version: Warner Bros. lost $167M on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix after 612M worth of related revenue (everything from theatrical gross to merchandise to home video) over two years. It's almost like they said "whoops, we have to pay that...and that...and that...nothing's left!" from all the charges I'm reading.

Justin Godscock fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Dec 13, 2015

Terrorist Fistbump
Jan 29, 2009

by Nyc_Tattoo
The only thing that's completely unexplainable on there is the $211 million "distribution fee" paid by ??? to ??? for ???

Of course, that alone is enough to eat up all the profit.

oldpainless
Oct 30, 2009

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If the movies lost so much money I don't understand why they kept going after the first or second

Ape Agitator
Feb 19, 2004

Soylent Green is Monkeys
College Slice

Terrorist Fistbump posted:

The only thing that's completely unexplainable on there is the $211 million "distribution fee" paid by ??? to ??? for ???

Of course, that alone is enough to eat up all the profit.

I think that's the line item for the studio itelf.  It's all the infrastructure (vps, secretaries, studio-ish clout) that they're supposed to bring to the game that lets Harry Potter come out in November on thousands of screens and in the public awareness.

It's also unattributed and seems to be variable so it's a black hole to soak up potential profits before they're shared.

From what I understand, when an indie production company makes a movie and shops it around, the Miramax or Weistein that picks it up fills in that line item.  Which is separate from all the prints and advertising and such, just their costs to be able to get poo poo done as the middleman between the people who make the movie and the theaters who show it.

Some notes comparing things to Box Office Mojo:
Seems like there's a 54% split with domestic theaters and 45% split with foreign back to the distributor which seems high but the series had a lot of clout back then so they likely were able to strongarm theaters a lot with that.  The "30%" note in the document doesn't make a lot of sense because I can't find any way to interpret $162M domestic theatrical as 30% of anything.  It made $292 Domestic, $647 foreign, and $939 worldwide so it seems like they split 54% and 45%.  It's my understanding that typical non Avengers scale movies do much worse than that.

Other notes, BOM has the production budget as $150m but this has the negative costs as $315m so either a bunch of kids and British actors had incredible up front deals or the production company has their own black hole.  I had understood that Box Office Mojo's production budget included star salaries so who knows?


Seems like it would be a system that one guild or another would have sued into transparency long ago but I'm guessing that given their product is generically "movies" their stars and directors are fundamentally interchangeable so they trample anyone with bad agents until they become irreplaceably huge names and then make them producers so they then become part of the system.

Ape Agitator fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Dec 13, 2015

Calico Heart
Mar 22, 2012

"wich the worst part was what troll face did to sonic's corpse after words wich was rape it. at that point i looked away"



Wizchine posted:

According to the article the film earned "just $167 million globally on a budget of $120 million." So even factoring in marketing and distribution costs, the film at least broke even. I suspect that means that FOX won't be relinquishing the F4 rights to Marvel anytime soon.

Nope.

Studios only see a quarter of the money a movie earns internationally. So if a movie makes 70% of its money overseas, it's a huge failure. Hell, if F4 only made 50% of it's money overseas it'd be considered a failure.

Snowglobe of Doom posted:

We should maybe clarify to: Do they greenlight a cinematic sequel? I've seen a few cases where they've cranked out a few straight-to-DVD sequels just so they can hang onto the rights for a few more years, like those lovely Dungeons & Dragons movies.

Oftentimes a studio will greenlight a sequel for a film that did okay/made back/made just under budget, as sequels make money and they can keep the IP a little longer.

Snowglobe of Doom posted:

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell maybe ....


Repeat after me: The net is a lie, always ask for the gross.

Calico Heart fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Dec 14, 2015

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

Ape Agitator posted:

I think that's the line item for the studio itelf.  It's all the infrastructure (vps, secretaries, studio-ish clout) that they're supposed to bring to the game that lets Harry Potter come out in November on thousands of screens and in the public awareness.

It's also unattributed and seems to be variable so it's a black hole to soak up potential profits before they're shared.

From what I understand, when an indie production company makes a movie and shops it around, the Miramax or Weistein that picks it up fills in that line item.  Which is separate from all the prints and advertising and such, just their costs to be able to get poo poo done as the middleman between the people who make the movie and the theaters who show it.

Some notes comparing things to Box Office Mojo:
Seems like there's a 54% split with domestic theaters and 45% split with foreign back to the distributor which seems high but the series had a lot of clout back then so they likely were able to strongarm theaters a lot with that.  The "30%" note in the document doesn't make a lot of sense because I can't find any way to interpret $162M domestic theatrical as 30% of anything.  It made $292 Domestic, $647 foreign, and $939 worldwide so it seems like they split 54% and 45%.  It's my understanding that typical non Avengers scale movies do much worse than that.

Other notes, BOM has the production budget as $150m but this has the negative costs as $315m so either a bunch of kids and British actors had incredible up front deals or the production company has their own black hole.  I had understood that Box Office Mojo's production budget included star salaries so who knows?


Seems like it would be a system that one guild or another would have sued into transparency long ago but I'm guessing that given their product is generically "movies" their stars and directors are fundamentally interchangeable so they trample anyone with bad agents until they become irreplaceably huge names and then make them producers so they then become part of the system.

I know this is a bit of thread necromancy, but I'd be :allears: to see what Studios do attribute their net profits to in their books.

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!
J Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon 5) once said "If the set on a Warner Bros movie burns down in Botswana, they can charge it against Babylon 5's profits." An exaggeration, but probably not by much.

Neurolimal
Nov 3, 2012

Calico Heart posted:

Nope.

Studios only see a quarter of the money a movie earns internationally. So if a movie makes 70% of its money overseas, it's a huge failure. Hell, if F4 only made 50% of it's money overseas it'd be considered a failure.

The failure part isn't so true anymore (thanks to China's endless lust for brighter and louder action films overcoming super strict regulations and fees), but the rest still holds. It also explains how, say, Transformers can boast obscene profts (because they're using what the film made overall instead of what they actually got).

F4 is still a failure even by new standards though. Rest in peace, you weird little inbred film.

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007

Witchfinder General

The first 10 to 15 minutes of this are pretty good and then it's like What The gently caress. That's basically my reaction " Why did people say this is bad, I like it so far" , " Oh god, what the hell is going on".

Sir Kodiak
May 14, 2007


Yeah, it feels like a movie you've discovered people have completely misjudged and then it veers straight into a ditch.

JediTalentAgent
Jun 5, 2005
Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!

Hollismason posted:

The first 10 to 15 minutes of this are pretty good and then it's like What The gently caress. That's basically my reaction " Why did people say this is bad, I like it so far" , " Oh god, what the hell is going on".

I sort of feel SLIGHTLY the opposite way.

I think you could cut immediately from Ben/Reed as kids to Reed's move-in day at the Baxter Building, which cuts out most of that first 10-15 minutes.

Or you cut straight from his talk to the class about teleporters and what not to a now-older Reed giving a similar talk, this time with more maturity, showing off Powerpoints and numbers and formulas to recruiters at the Baxter Institute who are reviewing his theories where half of them think he's a genius, the other half think he's just crazy, and Victor is there taking notes and quietly conferring with Dr. Storm in the back of the room.

JediTalentAgent
Jun 5, 2005
Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!

quote:

Winston Groom's price for the screenplay rights to his novel Forrest Gump included a 3% share of the profits; however, due to Hollywood accounting, the film's commercial success was converted into a net loss, and Groom received only $350,000 for the rights and an additional $250,000 from the studio.

I could have sworn that I heard after the success of Forrest Gump and the ensuing Hollywood Accounting, the studio/production company wanted to make a movie around a Gump sequel book he'd written and tried to get the rights.

I think the author responded with a refusal and with something along the lines of asking why they'd want to make a sequel to a film that didn't make any money?

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

JediTalentAgent posted:

I think the author responded with a refusal and with something along the lines of asking why they'd want to make a sequel to a film that didn't make any money?

:iceburn:

I'm surprised that a regulator hasn't yet burned Hollywood to the ground over the way they keep their books. I guess at the end of the day it works and that's all that matters.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD
Sep 14, 2007

everything is yours
A Gump & Co. movie would have been batshit.

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Neurolimal
Nov 3, 2012

SirPhoebos posted:

:iceburn:

I'm surprised that a regulator hasn't yet burned Hollywood to the ground over the way they keep their books. I guess at the end of the day it works and that's all that matters.

Considering the only side of politics interested in any sort of tax-rate for companies and rich people sees big donations and endorsements from Hollywood companies and stars, the odds of any sort of IRS descending upon them is somewhere in the "haha, lol, wait, haha lmao" range.

I mean, they couldn't be more blatant if they were to name them "Subsidiary TaxDodgeShellCo".

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