It's going to be fascinating to see how ASM does in it's second weekend at the US box office. I have a feeling hat Ice Age 4 (?) could suck a lot of air out of the room even though they aren't chasing the same audience.
And if ASM gets to $700m and it's 'break even' number I wonder if this will force Sony to reevaluate how they make the sequel?
Orci/Kurtsman don't exactly strike me as writers who do nuanced subtle drama.
With the DVD market whittled away to nothing studios are under more pressure more now than ever to go into profit with a film's theatrical run.
And that "if a film's domestic gross is equal to the budget, it's profitable" line is just nonsense.
Eleborate on this please. I'm assuming that you don't really have a great grasp on these things but I'd like to hear your 'working' all the same.
You can assume whatever you want. But i've already explained why.
The US box office is heavily frontloaded, and the studios take the vast majority of the revenue that ASM will take in.
Overseas, studios get less of a cut, but even if we assume it's even 40% (which is way, way too low because the dollar is weak right now) The US + WW gross will still exceed the "breakeven" point that the budget suggests. With a 220 million budget, Sony would need to be taking in less than 35% of the total worldwide gross to not break even at the box office. This is stretching the bounds of plausibility.
Now, you could say "but, marketing costs!" however- 1.) no one knows what the true dollar amount of that is, and 2.) Sony is on record as using product placement to defray about a third of the budget for this film. so the true cost of ASM likely isn't very much more than the stated $220 million.
And this is before we consider home video which includes not only DVD and Blu Ray which admittedly are in decline, but also streaming rights (which are not), premium channel rights like HBO/Showtime/Cinemax, non-premium cable rights like FX, and Broadcast. The total value of all this would have to be nearly zero for the "700 million breakeven" point to be correct. it isn't.
"DVD rentals and sales can tack on up to $60-$100 mil for a big title and TV rights, merchandise, and many other avenues can generate income," says Chad Hartigan, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations.
http://io9.com/5747305/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need-to-make-to-be-profitable
And like it or not, ASM is a big title, and spider man drives insane amounts of merchandising not just in the US, but internationally.
The 700 million breakeven figure is bullshit. at $700 million WW in box office alone, ASM will be very, very profitable for that studio.
