The way a film becomes profitable these days is a little more complicated than it used to be. The rule of thumb about doubling the production budget to encompass the hype machine is roughly accurate for middle-budget movies. In the case of the bigger budget ones it tends to 50 to 75% of the production number. So let’s say the new film needs to make $300 mil to break even in Paramount’s accounting. This is what needs to happen: Domestic box should at least equal the production budget then if the foreign box hits between $125 to $150 mil the studio will be happy.

Let’s take X-Men 3 as an example. The production budget was $210 mil. Domestically, it pulled down $234 mil while the foreign receipts came in at $224. Overall, this is not much of a profit. Why then is Wolverine coming out?

Answer: DVD sales. New media. Merchandising. It’s more difficult to find DVD sales numbers than box office, but according to my wife (who works for Warner in DVD production/sales) the studios make 3 times the amount of profit on any given movie from DVD sales than from box office. Otherwise they wouldn’t continue to make Resident Evil movies — whose box office numbers are weak at best.

That’s why the writers went on strike and the actors still haven’t agreed to a new contract.

Glad to hear that you made it through to the other side of the storm and that things aren’t too terrible for you!

And if Mrs. Closettrekker says she enjoys that pillow-like feature, why not just relax and take her at her word? }:-)

Not that long to wait for the trailer then thank god!!

#181—No, but I bought them all pizza and room temperature bottled water (best I could do under the circumstances of half the city powerless). It was rough though without cargo-lifts or pallet-jacks, etc. I’m sure that they were somewhat thankful that there was still work. Many people lost alot of income during the bulk of the outtage, with businesses being completely shut down and all.

And unfortunately, it has been at least a decade since my muscles did any rippling…lol. In fact, my wife says everything has fallen from my shoulders to my stomach area. But it’s not all bad. She says that she enjoys the pillow-like feature that wasn’t there before. She is probably trying to make me feel better…

:)

Wait, which one am I supposed to not like?

I kinda dig trashy girls flashing their assets.

The love that goes in to many of these posts is wasted on the format. I really wish we could create threads on topics–rather than having random disjointed conversations.

When all is said and done in June 2009, after we’ve all seen the movie a few times, we will look back and realize that this long delay was like the difference between the dance of seven veils and a trashy girl flashing her assets.

They have us so teased up that they could show us the font on a Tricorder and it would generate 150 posts.

So let’s be cool. Engage in lively debates. Don’t take anything personally under any circumstances.

Unless someone calls you ‘Diane Warren,’ that’s beyond the pale.

There are a number of ways to answer this question… between the editing, processing, making thousands of copies for distribution and the shipping to the individual theaters… yes, it costs a lot of money to put trailers in the theater.

It costs nothing to have them run on the beginning of the film.

Whoa man, you should relax. Have a drink.