Read the article, the GP is wrong. They paid to rent the cinema (small fee), then "sold" themselves the tickets. So their expenditure might have been $26k, but

Read the article, the GP is wrong. They paid to rent the cinema (small fee), then "sold" themselves the tickets. So their expenditure might have been $26k, but their income would have been $26k. In reality, I assume no money changed hands. It's almost more fun to imagine they sold each other one ticket at time handing the same ten dollars back and forth between themselves. They held 5 viewings, making roughly $5k per viewing.