How to measure (financial) success?

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How to measure (financial) success? - 28/2/2013 1:48:44 PM

Brundlesflies

Posts: 592
Joined: 30/9/2005
From: ..telepod one to telepod two

I was just having a read through Box Office Mojo's March preview and I came across this passage relating to up-coming caveman 'toon The Croods:

"DreamWorks hasn't had a ton of success with original animated movies lately�Megamind was a bit underwhelming, while November's Rise of the Guardians is a well-documented disaster"

I read somewhere else that Dreamworks were laying off somewhere in the region of 350 staff in the wake of Rise's less than steller performance.

I then looked up the final tally's for each flick and their published budgets
Rise - $302m w/w gross: $145m Budget
Megamind - $321m w/w gross: $130m Budget

Now based on that Megamind only took somewhere in the region of $35m more than Rise - yet one is deemed 'slightly underwhelming' while the other is apparently an unmitigated disaster leading to mass unemployment

Now I know that Hollywood accounting is a Dark Art somewhat akin to necromancy (apparently Burton's Batman - $411m Gross: $35m Budget - never made a profit

), but surely someone somewhere is calling 'foul' on this type of thing?

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RE: How to measure (financial) success? - 28/2/2013 3:07:20 PM

Shifty Bench

Posts: 14749
Joined: 30/9/2005

They count how much the film took in the US as an indicator of how it did. Rise only took just over $102 million domestic which is less than its budget while Megamind took $148,415,853 domestic which is more than its budget.....

< Message edited by Shifty Bench -- 1/3/2013 12:45:22 PM >

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quote:

ORIGINAL: matty_b
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RE: How to measure (financial) success? - 1/3/2013 11:58:45 AM

Cloud Cuckoo

Posts: 393
Joined: 7/2/2013
From: Mind your own

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shifty Bench

$102,00,00

Are you pioneering a new kind of counting system?

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RE: How to measure (financial) success? - 1/3/2013 12:11:41 PM

AxlReznor

Posts: 1095
Joined: 2/12/2010
From: Great Britain

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shifty Bench

They count how much the film took in the US as an indicator of how it did. Rise only took just over $102,00,00 domestic which is less than its budget while Megamind took $148,415,853 domestic which is more than its budget.....

Wait... so the rest of the world doesn't count? That's just really stupid, as far as I'm concerned. It should be worldwide gross that matters overall, not just domestic gross. Stupid bastards...

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RE: How to measure (financial) success? - 1/3/2013 12:44:33 PM

Shifty Bench

Posts: 14749
Joined: 30/9/2005

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cloud Cuckoo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Shifty Bench

$102,00,00

Are you pioneering a new kind of counting system?

I am, I think it'll catch on

_____________________________

Extended Edition- click (Ep 6:DSLR Film-making )

quote:

ORIGINAL: matty_b
You have a nice face, Shifty. A face I would have a cup of tea with.

(in reply to Cloud Cuckoo)

Post #: 5

RE: How to measure (financial) success? - 1/3/2013 1:03:22 PM

great_badir

Posts: 4205
Joined: 6/10/2005
From: A breaking rope bridge in the middle of the jungle

quote:

ORIGINAL: AxlReznor
Wait... so the rest of the world doesn't count? That's just really stupid, as far as I'm concerned. It should be worldwide gross that matters overall, not just domestic gross. Stupid bastards...

The rest of the world doesn't really count when it comes to mainstream American releases - apart from being the domestic market, the States is, obviously, where the money is going to come in quickly because of the sheer number of screens available and the potential size of the audience. By contrast, takings from the rest of the world are a lot slower to come in (and smaller), and other costs have to be factored in before any ROW takings can be added to the overall box office take.

This is why some films have historically been considered as box office disaster, even if their world wide gross puts them into clear profit.

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RE: How to measure (financial) success? - 12/3/2013 1:29:33 PM

Moorish

Posts: 280
Joined: 17/10/2005
From: Scotland

To be you measure the success of a film by the following:

- Do people talk about it? Good, bad... doesn't matter. As long as they aren't indifferent / unaware / not caring.

- Did it make a profit?

The buck really stops with that second one, but obviously that first one is going to be the deciding factor.

(in reply to great_badir)

Post #: 7