Money making movies

[Barry]

 
“All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance.” Will Rogers
 
I am a bit tired of reading how every movie loses money.  Or so it seems that way. Seriously, if the articles about them are true, all movie studios would be out of business by now.
 
So, let’s us pretend to make a movie for Disney. (or any other company). So I don’t have to do real math I am rounding off numbers. And I am basing it on the Marvel movie now out there.

“AVS: Same Old World” is the title and it costs $200 million to make.

But that is not what we paid.  If you see the end credits you will see states and countries, that give major “credits” or financing to motion pictures.  In New York it is 30% for a scripted movie or TV show.  It’s more or less in other places.

So REAL COST is $140 million.

It took in $200 million the first week and Disney gets half.  WRONG!  It’s in the papers, Disney gets a least 65% the first couple of weeks a movie is out.  That percentage goes down as time goes by, but movies these days don’t seem to last more than a month.

So Disney gets $130 million. There is a difference of just 10 million in two weeks
Which will be made up in the next few weeks
What about advertising? Let’s say we spent 30 million on ads.  So that should add 30 million to cost. No!  A huge amount of the ad budget goes onto Disney owned stations: ABC, ESPN, FX, A&E, and a few others.  So much the money is charged to the movie, but stays in the family.
 
What we don’t know is how much money is made here, but it is in the tens of millions.

Movie will go on Pay for View Cable and Amazon and Apple
Movie is released on airplanes, ships and other private industries.
DVD’s Blue Ray and 4k Discs
Movie is released on Pay Cable, such as Starz and HBO
Movie is placed on Disney owned cable stations such as FX.  They own the movie so they don’t pay for it, just collect commercial money.
Movie goes on ABC broadcast. Again, they own the movie.
Movie goes on cable stations, and local TV stations, owned by others, such as TBS for years to come.

I don’t know how to calculate the merchandising and streaming profits into he movie, but Disney does.

STREAMING:
Disney has 150 million subscribers at different rates.  Let us use the rate of $12 a month. That comes out to 1.8 billion dollars a month, 21.6 Billion dollars a year.

MERCHANDISING:
Disney makes 5.3  Billion dollars in year in merchandising, half comes from Marvel movies.
 
So even a movie that seems to not do very well is healthier than reported.
 

[bmoney]

Interesting. Thanks for the write up 

[David Vaughn]

I can tell you most of the studios are struggling right now because production is way down in Hollywood. How do I know that? Well, in my day job, we sell paint to the various studios (Fox (now Disney) and Universal are both big accounts) and we've seen sales slip about 40% in the studio business. Now some of this has gone to Georgia and Vancouver, CA, but not 40% of it. In talking with the job foreman, they say they've had staff cutbacks due to lack of work. 

So while the studios are making money, they aren't making as much money as they used to

[bmoney]

I can tell you most of the studios are struggling right now because production is way down in Hollywood. How do I know that? Well, in my day job, we sell paint to the various studios (Fox (now Disney) and Universal are both big accounts) and we've seen sales slip about 40% in the studio business. Now some of this has gone to Georgia and Vancouver, CA, but not 40% of it. In talking with the job foreman, they say they've had staff cutbacks due to lack of work.

So while the studios are making money, they aren't making as much money as they used to

im sure netflix, amazon apple as movie producers have somthing to do with that.  t

[Barry]

David, 1950s was a terrible time for movies. In the United States television viewing cut movie attendance by 50% from 1950 to 1960. And Great Britain lost movie attendance by 60%.

The movie industry had to adapt. In the beginning, they tried to ignore TV. The big studios didn’t sell their pictures to the networks and they did not make TV shows. Of course, that all changed. Currently the big TV networks are owned by movie Studios. 

if this was five years ago, I would say we were going through a similar stage, and the movie companies had to adjust to streaming. But we had two unusual events. Covid shut down the theaters for a couple of years and also cut down on movie making. Then two years ago, we had the terrible strike that also shut down the industry. The studios have to learn how to recover and maybe if they can recover. I do believe that strike was a killer.

[David Vaughn]

David, 1950s was a terrible time for movies. In the United States television viewing cut movie attendance by 50% from 1950 to 1960. And Great Britain lost movie attendance by 60%.

The movie industry had to adapt. In the beginning, they tried to ignore TV. The big studios didn’t sell their pictures to the networks and they did not make TV shows. Of course, that all changed. Currently the big TV networks are owned by movie Studios.

if this was five years ago, I would say we were going through a similar stage, and the movie companies had to adjust to streaming. But we had two unusual events. Covid shut down the theaters for a couple of years and also cut down on movie making. Then two years ago, we had the terrible strike that also shut down the industry. The studios have to learn how to recover and maybe if they can recover. I do believe that strike was a killer.

Absolutely about the strike. The studios said "sure, we'll pay you a lot more for your services," and then they cut out over 50% of the produced shows/movies, so less people have jobs. The ones that are working are doing well, but those that aren't are having to find other ways to make ends meet. 

[Barry]

Absolutely about the strike. The studios said "sure, we'll pay you a lot more for your services," and then they cut out over 50% of the produced shows/movies, so less people have jobs. The ones that are working are doing well, but those that aren't are having to find other ways to make ends meet.

David, I was a union guy, and there were times that the unions were very helpful. Sadly, many unions do not look at the items needed to maintain their business. Movies and broadcast TV seem to be dying. It will be a slow death, but streaming, meaning, paying directly to view programs, seems to be taking over. Their union seems to be almost oblivious to these changes,

[David Vaughn]

David, I was a union guy, and there were times that the unions were very helpful. Sadly, many unions do not look at the items needed to maintain their business. Movies and broadcast TV seem to be dying. It will be a slow death, but streaming, meaning, paying directly to view programs, seems to be taking over. Their union seems to be almost oblivious to these changes,

Well said Barry. They may have won the last battle with the studios but ultimately may lose the war.