3 ms·

A billion dollars of profit is still a billion dollars of profit. Adjust all ya want.

cakesy 17y ago
Yes, there are many ways to measure this. You can look at number of tickets sold, tickets/population, gross, profit, etc...
noilly 17y ago
the film studios only see part of (I've heard ~50%) gross box office when taking theater operator's share out (+ cost to manufacture and distribute film reels, etc). Plus Avatar cost >300 million to produce + >100 million marketing + James Cameron's share, etc. Film studios make most of the profit from accounting/tax tricks, dvd revenue, tv deals, etc.
- waterlesscloud 17y ago
  It's a sliding scale of box office gross that goes to the studios. Believe it or not, each film has its own deal, and there isn't really a standard amount. Bigger films can negotiate more for the distributor (studio) and less for the exhibitor (theater). The typical pattern is that the first weekend or two is very heavily slanted towards the distributor (as much as a 85/15 split, though 70/30 is more normal). Then the distributor's share goes down each weekend. The rule of thumb is that over the course of a typical film, the distributor will receive about 55% of box office gross. Foreign deals can differ a fair amount. Each deal is different, and it's hard to say what any one film gets without some insider info. Then there's the cost of the film. There's not been a firm number on Avatar's production costs. High 200s is a good guess, but it's a guess. P&A (prints and advertising) can be a huge cost on something like Avatar, though it had fewer prints than a typical blockbuster. Advertising was certainly substantial, though. I suspect 100 million is actually low. Cameron's share is likely defined to come after some sort of breakeven point, some minimum number the studio beancounters said had to come back to the studio. There's really no standard whatsoever for someone like Cameron though, so who knows. It's also important to remember that a lot of a film's production cost is really just the studio paying itself. Soundstage rental. Grip trucks, costuming, blah blah blah. Money moving from one column to another. Avatar probably didn't qualify for any tax credits, though some films get really amazing deals. Some come close to having half their budgets in transferable tax credits, depending on the state or locale they shoot in. Those tax credits can be sold for cash and can considerably lower the cost to a studio. The traditional hope for an average film has been to break even on box office, profit on the ancillaries - dvd, tv, etc. But with DVD sales dropping, that model will need some adjustment. Avatar, though, is probably pretty close to some definition of profit in theatrical release. And all that billion plus dollars is cash flow. Which is king, as much in Hollywood as it is anywhere else.
tolmasky 17y ago
This is a personal pet peeve of mine because I have simply never understood the point of comparing movie profits not adjusted for inflation. 1 billion in profit is not 1 billion in profit, that's the whole point. People seem to occasionally mention adjusting for inflation like its some obscure comparison, but in reality these numbers are otherwise just 100% meaningless. Its like saying "This movie made more rupees than that movie made dollars!" OK, but who knows what that means if you don't know the relative values? If tomorrow we had hyper-inflation and a bus ticket cost 1 million dollars, would anyone still be impressed by a billion dollars in profit? Would the mediocre comedies netting trillions at the box office be given the title of "most profitable movie" of all time? A dollar in 1977 had the buying power of somewhere between 3 to 4 dollars now. $1/3 billion profit in 1977 dollars is a significantly smaller number.

Yes, there are many ways to measure this. You can look at number of tickets sold, tickets/population, gross, profit, etc...

noilly 17y ago

the film studios only see part of (I've heard ~50%) gross box office when taking theater operator's share out (+ cost to manufacture and distribute film reels, etc). Plus Avatar cost >300 million to produce + >100 million marketing + James Cameron's share, etc. Film studios make most of the profit from accounting/tax tricks, dvd revenue, tv deals, etc.

waterlesscloud 17y ago
It's a sliding scale of box office gross that goes to the studios. Believe it or not, each film has its own deal, and there isn't really a standard amount. Bigger films can negotiate more for the distributor (studio) and less for the exhibitor (theater). The typical pattern is that the first weekend or two is very heavily slanted towards the distributor (as much as a 85/15 split, though 70/30 is more normal). Then the distributor's share goes down each weekend. The rule of thumb is that over the course of a typical film, the distributor will receive about 55% of box office gross. Foreign deals can differ a fair amount. Each deal is different, and it's hard to say what any one film gets without some insider info. Then there's the cost of the film. There's not been a firm number on Avatar's production costs. High 200s is a good guess, but it's a guess. P&A (prints and advertising) can be a huge cost on something like Avatar, though it had fewer prints than a typical blockbuster. Advertising was certainly substantial, though. I suspect 100 million is actually low. Cameron's share is likely defined to come after some sort of breakeven point, some minimum number the studio beancounters said had to come back to the studio. There's really no standard whatsoever for someone like Cameron though, so who knows. It's also important to remember that a lot of a film's production cost is really just the studio paying itself. Soundstage rental. Grip trucks, costuming, blah blah blah. Money moving from one column to another. Avatar probably didn't qualify for any tax credits, though some films get really amazing deals. Some come close to having half their budgets in transferable tax credits, depending on the state or locale they shoot in. Those tax credits can be sold for cash and can considerably lower the cost to a studio. The traditional hope for an average film has been to break even on box office, profit on the ancillaries - dvd, tv, etc. But with DVD sales dropping, that model will need some adjustment. Avatar, though, is probably pretty close to some definition of profit in theatrical release. And all that billion plus dollars is cash flow. Which is king, as much in Hollywood as it is anywhere else.

tolmasky 17y ago

This is a personal pet peeve of mine because I have simply never understood the point of comparing movie profits not adjusted for inflation. 1 billion in profit is not 1 billion in profit, that's the whole point. People seem to occasionally mention adjusting for inflation like its some obscure comparison, but in reality these numbers are otherwise just 100% meaningless. Its like saying "This movie made more rupees than that movie made dollars!" OK, but who knows what that means if you don't know the relative values? If tomorrow we had hyper-inflation and a bus ticket cost 1 million dollars, would anyone still be impressed by a billion dollars in profit? Would the mediocre comedies netting trillions at the box office be given the title of "most profitable movie" of all time? A dollar in 1977 had the buying power of somewhere between 3 to 4 dollars now. $1/3 billion profit in 1977 dollars is a significantly smaller number.