Dr Strange box office prediction thread

[InCali]

Man, those China returns are atrocious
I get it's a rising market, but why bother trying so hard to court them when you get s*** back on your investment.... the movies that do poorly domestic but well overseas really aren't doing that well overall, shows domestic is still very important... USA! USA!

lol

I guess a bucket of green $#!t is better than an empty bucket? The movie has already been made so what the frell. Send it to frelling Mars if there are people who will pay to watch it.

Thanks for the revenue info. I guess SW:TFA made some money at the BO. More than FFINO.

Also if you can make a few bucks AND set the stage for your blockbusters (Thor/IM/CA - Avengers), that's a win, win.

 

[JKKS085]

Man, those China returns are atrocious
I get it's a rising market, but why bother trying so hard to court them when you get s*** back on your investment.... the movies that do poorly domestic but well overseas really aren't doing that well overall, shows domestic is still very important... USA! USA!

lol

Well it's not such a bad deal when you look at it. Sure they only get about 25% of what movies make there but they don't have to support any releasing cost as CFGC takes care of distribution and marketing in China.
If you take Ant-Man, the movie grossed $105.37M in China and Marvel Studios return there was about $26.3M.
Internationally Ant-Man grossed $233.68M. Marvel's return was about 40% of that which is $93.5M, but they also spent 65M to release the film overseas, which means that in the end they only made $28.5M off the $233.68M which is a mere 12.2% return (compared to the 51.9% return dom and 25% from China).
Of course with much bigger films international returns get more interesting for studios as higher os grosses offset releasing costs more easily, but you get the idea.

 

[BoredGuy]

I get it in the sense that money is money, and any return on investment is something studios will chase

My bigger issue is the censorship concerns of China, and the way studios are catering to them either via scenes set in China, not mentioning Tibet, spiritual/supernatural elements being somewhat off-limits, etc. If movies can just be released there without chasing their approval, that's fine. But if a director has to alter their film to accomodate a place that's giving them a lower return?? F*** that noise.

 

[InCali]

Well it's not such a bad deal when you look at it. Sure they only get about 25% of what movies make there but they don't have to support any releasing cost as CFGC takes care of distribution and marketing in China.
If you take Ant-Man, the movie grossed $105.37M in China and Marvel Studios return there was about $26.3M.
Internationally Ant-Man grossed $233.68M. Marvel's return was about 40% of that which is $93.5M, but they also spent 65M to release the film overseas, which means that in the end they only made $28.5M off the $233.68M which is a mere 12.2% return (compared to the 51.9% return dom and 25% from China).
Of course with much bigger films international returns get more interesting for studios as higher os grosses offset releasing costs more easily, but you get the idea.

Thanks for the info. I did not know that. So, essentially, they just contract out the work to China and China takes their cut of the profit in lieu of paying a higher percentage. That sounds like a good deal for China although it encourages them to get as much money as possible.

I get it in the sense that money is money, and any return on investment is something studios will chase

My bigger issue is the censorship concerns of China, and the way studios are catering to them either via scenes set in China, not mentioning Tibet, spiritual/supernatural elements being somewhat off-limits, etc. If movies can just be released there without chasing their approval, that's fine. But if a director has to alter their film to accomodate a place that's giving them a lower return?? F*** that noise.

I don't think I would function well in China. I'm wired wrong I guess.....

 

[iEquinox]

Well it's not such a bad deal when you look at it. Sure they only get about 25% of what movies make there but they don't have to support any releasing cost as CFGC takes care of distribution and marketing in China.
If you take Ant-Man, the movie grossed $105.37M in China and Marvel Studios return there was about $26.3M.
Internationally Ant-Man grossed $233.68M. Marvel's return was about 40% of that which is $93.5M, but they also spent 65M to release the film overseas, which means that in the end they only made $28.5M off the $233.68M which is a mere 12.2% return (compared to the 51.9% return dom and 25% from China).
Of course with much bigger films international returns get more interesting for studios as higher os grosses offset releasing costs more easily, but you get the idea.

You forgot to deduct those releasing costs for the domestic returns. Marvel grossed 180.2M domestically. Marvel got 93.2M of that, but they spent 55M to release the film domestically. So they made 38.2M. That's a 21.2% return domestically, not 51.9%.

And it's not like they don't have any releasing costs in China (Those costs are included in the 65M Marvel spent to release the movie overseas, the return is slightly better than 12.2%, while China's return is less than 25%):

Marketing and Advertising
Generally, the Hollywood studios pay the marketing and advertising costs for their films that are released in Chinese theatres, while CFGC or Huaxia (or both of them) pay for prints (they also might pay for the printed posters/theater standees in cinemas). However, studios are only allowed to do limited advertising on the internet and in outdoor venues due to protections for local films. Direct advertising on TV for Hollywood films is not allowed, which is the most effective way to market a movie in China. And since TV ads are relatively too expensive for local films, TV spots for local movies are rare to see in China. The most common ways of marketing a movie in China are via internet ads (cheap, easy and sometimes very effective) and in cinemas (traditional and effective).

Two years ago, many trailers for both Hollywood and local movies could be seen before a movie but now Hollywood trailers have disappeared in most China theatres. What happened? Hollywood trailers were replaced by ads for cars, real estate, shopping, and local films. Why? Because most (80%+) screens in China are now digital and trailers and ads are now easily removed. Hollywood studios have weak control on distributing their films in China despite the fact that they pay for the majority of the advertising.

The biggest marketing campaigns so far belong to Avatar, Transformers 3, and Titanic 3D.

Outdoor banners and billboards for Hollywood tent-pole movies can often be seen in crowded places and heavily-trafficked urban areas. Though they can’t air spots on cable TV, studios like Sony often show movie spots on advertising screens in the Shanghai subways. It was reported that about 800,000 yuan was spent for doing such ads for two weeks to promote Men in Black 3.

https://chinafilmbiz.com/2012/11/09/how-chinas-movie-distribution-system-works-part-2/

But it is true that they pay relatively little money for the release of a movie in China compared to other countries. The returns aren't that great though.

 

[JKKS085]

You forgot to deduct those releasing costs for the domestic returns. Marvel grossed 180.2M domestically. Marvel got 93.2M of that, but they spent 55M to release the film domestically. So they made 38.2M. That's a 21.2% return domestically, not 51.9%.

Yes absolutely. Thanks for being thorough.

And it's not like they don't have any releasing costs in China (Those costs are included in the 65M Marvel spent to release the movie overseas, the return is slightly better than 12.2%, while China's return is less than 25%):

https://chinafilmbiz.com/2012/11/09/how-chinas-movie-distribution-system-works-part-2/

But it is true that they pay relatively little money for the release of a movie in China compared to other countries. The returns aren't that great though.

Didn't know the specifics of the deals between CFGC and the majors regarding P&A costs. Thanks for the link.

 

[Typhoon22]

A long time ago I read that a movie needs to break even at 2,5x its production budget. I really don't think Dr.Strange's marketing exceeds 100m. I barely saw it anywhere aside of the usual promotions they do. It's safe to say the good doctor already made at least 100m bank by now. And it's not going to stop there. It'll probably make at least 100m from total domestic video sales. And then you have the overseas sales and everything else it's crazy how much more they're gonna make.

Even a studio that spends an insane amount of marketing like WB can greenlight sequels to films that didn't break even at the box office. I remember Iron Man 1 made like 500+m ww but it made almost half of that in domestic video sales. That's crazy.

I'm not sure how well Dr.Strange is going to do at video sales (really difficult to predict these) but the visual experience may provide a nice boost.
I'm usually ''yeah I might buy these on BR'' but with this film I can't wait to get my hands on it because of the visual experience.

 

[InCali]

A long time ago I read that a movie needs to break even at 2,5x its production budget. I really don't think Dr.Strange's marketing exceeds 100m. I barely saw it anywhere aside of the usual promotions they do. It's safe to say the good doctor already made at least 100m bank by now. And it's not going to stop there. It'll probably make at least 100m from total domestic video sales. And then you have the overseas sales and everything else it's crazy how much more they're gonna make.

Even a studio that spends an insane amount of marketing like WB can greenlight sequels to films that didn't break even at the box office. I remember Iron Man 1 made like 500+m ww but it made almost half of that in domestic video sales. That's crazy.

I'm not sure how well Dr.Strange is going to do at video sales (really difficult to predict these) but the visual experience may provide a nice boost.
I'm usually ''yeah I might buy these on BR'' but with this film I can't wait to get my hands on it because of the visual experience.

Just when you think you might know something......

2.5 x the production budget for DS would be just over 400M.

Would all of you people out there who are on the Disney payroll to write good things about Marvel please clarify??

 

[iEquinox]

$2,645,540 on Tuesday, the domestic total is up to $186,238,475.
Boxofficemojo thinks it will make $18.2M in the next 5 days(13.1M in the weekend), that would mean it will be at 204.4M by the end of the weekend.

A long time ago I read that a movie needs to break even at 2,5x its production budget. I really don't think Dr.Strange's marketing exceeds 100m. I barely saw it anywhere aside of the usual promotions they do. It's safe to say the good doctor already made at least 100m bank by now.

Well it turns out not everything you once read somewhere is true. This is one of those instances where it obviously isn't.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

35% increase, very nice.

 

[JKKS085]

Just when you think you might know something......

2.5 x the production budget for DS would be just over 400M.

Would all of you people out there who are on the Disney payroll to write good things about Marvel please clarify??

Regarding P&A costs for past Marvel movies:
- Ant-Man: $120M
- Avengers Age Of Ultron: 180M
- Guardians Of The Galaxy: 148M
- Captain America The Winter Soldier: 164M
- Thor The Dark World: 140M
- Iron Man 3: 132M

Now it isn't rocket science as iEquinox pointed out, studios get an average 52.5% of the domestic gross (actually with Marvel it's anywhere between 50% and 55% but that doesn't make a huge difference anyways), 40% of the international gross except for China where they get 25%.

And then it's just math to determine a break even point. That will depend on how much money it makes domestically, internationally and in China. If you have a 150M movie produced by a major studio that makes 50M dom + 300M os + 300M cn for a 650M ww cume the bottom line isn't the same for the studio as a movie that makes 300M dom + 300M os + 50M cn even if in the end they grossed the same amount of money at the box office. And it isn't the same either if on the back of your production budget you have a printing & advertising budget of 125M or 175M.

But then again theaters is not where studios make the bulk of their money and that is especially true in the genre where ancillary markets are thriving (even in the age of declining HE).

 

[Typhoon22]

$2,645,540 on Tuesday, the domestic total is up to $186,238,475.
Boxofficemojo thinks it will make $18.2M in the next 5 days(13.1M in the weekend), that would mean it will be at 204.4M by the end of the weekend.


Well it turns out not everything you once read somewhere is true. This is one of those instances where it obviously isn't.

No need to be condescending with that sentence. As a long time member of the old BOM forums this was something that stuck in my mind when it came to break even points. I don't think 2,5-3 is that far off from reality. Obviously it varies on the film and time.

We're all speculating at this point. We have no clue what the break even point is. All we know at this point is the films budget excl. marketing and the % distributors keep to themselves.

Let's take Penguins as an example. 132 budget and 130 marketing total budget 262m. It made 360 something and cost them 50 something million. It's break even point was 430m so 3.2x its budget. Wouldn't be surprising if Strange's break even point is around 500m.

 

[JKKS085]

Wouldn't be surprising if Strange's break even point is around 500m.

Would you care to break that down because with 17%+ of its global gross coming from China I don't see how that would work ?
Again it's hard to say out of thin air what the break even point of a film is without taking the split between domestic/international/China gross in account

 

[InCali]

Regarding P&A costs for past Marvel movies:
- Ant-Man: $120M
- Avengers Age Of Ultron: 180M
- Guardians Of The Galaxy: 148M
- Captain America The Winter Soldier: 164M
- Thor The Dark World: 140M
- Iron Man 3: 132M

Now it isn't rocket science as iEquinox pointed out, studios get an average 52.5% of the domestic gross (actually with Marvel it's anywhere between 50% and 55% but that doesn't make a huge difference anyways), 40% of the international gross except for China where they get 25%.

And then it's just math to determine a break even point. That will depend on how much money it makes domestically, internationally and in China. If you have a 150M movie produced by a major studio that makes 50M dom + 300M os + 300M cn for a 650M ww cume the bottom line isn't the same for the studio as a movie that makes 300M dom + 300M os + 50M cn even if in the end they grossed the same amount of money at the box office. And it isn't the same either if on the back of your production budget you have a printing & advertising budget of 125M or 175M.

But then again theaters is not where studios make the bulk of their money and that is especially true in the genre where ancillary markets are thriving (even in the age of declining HE).

Yeah. The numbers don't confuse me. I actually taught statistics at the University of California some years ago so the arithmetic is simple. With emerging (ie changing) OS market shares, a flat, across the board multiplier won't be perfect if you have changing, geographically divergent revenue from different areas, but it may give you some sense of overall picture.

It's similar to how the DOM/OS/China formula is stated. Clearly these are all attempts at getting closer to the bottom line.

So, to make things simple for me, Ant-Man's production budget was "said" to be about 130M. Are you saying that the printing and advertising costs were an additional 120M for a total cost of about 250M? If that's so, the 50/40/25 formula would give Ant-Man BO revenues of about 210M (I did this by eyeballing the BOM stats while kind of drunk so don't hold me to it). If so, Ant-Man lost about 40M at the BO and made a bunch more from other revenue streams.

I think Typhoon's point that we're sort of in the dark is a good one; we probably don't know enough to do anything other than get somewhere around the ballpark...and the ballpark might be a long way off. Also, IF printing and advertising costs can really approach 50% of the budget, this seems to be where Disney could really cut costs as they own major media outlets and in house subsidiaries that could dramatically reduce those sorts of costs.

Anyway, those are my musings....

 

[Joeyjojo72]

And those musings are the best any of us could do, without more/precise data. Thanks for giving it the old college try.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

@JKKS085 and @iEquinox, how are you 2 pulling out all these numbers on a whim?? It's Crazy but good.

Very good discussion guys and BTDub, Mister Doctor made 3 million on Wednesday and it's looking at 14.5 million (-18%) for the weekend according to Deadline.

 

[iEquinox]

So, to make things simple for me, Ant-Man's production budget was "said" to be about 130M. Are you saying that the printing and advertising costs were an additional 120M for a total cost of about 250M? If that's so, the 50/40/25 formula would give Ant-Man BO revenues of about 210M (I did this by eyeballing the BOM stats while kind of drunk so don't hold me to it). If so, Ant-Man lost about 40M at the BO and made a bunch more from other revenue streams.

Ant-Man was analysed "using data culled by seasoned and trusted sources" according to deadline. I think the document in this article is as close to the official numbers for Ant-Man as we're going to get:
http://deadline.com/2016/03/ant-man-profit-box-office-2015-marvel-paul-rudd-1201723544/

We're not just making these numbers up randomly, I think this article should answer your questions

 

[MadVillainy]

I think it's worth noting that this whole thing is fruitless.
Remember when the 5th Harry Potter made over 900 mill on a production budget of 150 mill and WB had to claim a 167 mill lost

http://boingboing.net/2011/06/27/hollywoodonomics-how.html

This town is weird

 

[iEquinox]

I think it's worth noting that this whole thing is fruitless.
Remember when the 5th Harry Potter made over 900 mill on a production budget of 150 mill and WB had to claim a 167 mill lost

http://boingboing.net/2011/06/27/hollywoodonomics-how.html

This town is weird

Well, that's obviously just the studio's "claim", not the real numbers. The studio didn't want to pay people extra cash, I mean the people who get extra cash through net receipts. So they say they lost money, and they don't have to pay them anything.

Harry Potter 5 was actually one of the most profitable movies of all time. It made an estimated 525.5M net profit. It made over 256M gross from DVD/Blu-Ray, and that's only domestically. So WB decided the percentage they would have to pay would be too much money, and they found a way to not pay a thing. It's pretty common for studios to do this.

That's why most people in the business don't accept deals that give them a percentage of the net profit. It's way too easy for a studio to claim they didn't make a profit, so they won't have to pay anything.

So this whole thing is not "fruitless".

 

[InCali]

Ant-Man was analysed "using data culled by seasoned and trusted sources" according to deadline. I think the document in this article is as close to the official numbers for Ant-Man as we're going to get:
http://deadline.com/2016/03/ant-man-profit-box-office-2015-marvel-paul-rudd-1201723544/

We're not just making these numbers up randomly, I think this article should answer your questions

I don't think you're making anything up. I just wondered if you were saying that the total budget for AM was about 250M and whether the movie revenues only added up to a loss of about 40M.

I appreciate your perspective on this. I like to learn about this stuff.

 

[iEquinox]

I don't think you're making anything up. I just wondered if you were saying that the total budget for AM was about 250M and whether the movie revenues only added up to a loss of about 40M.

I appreciate your perspective on this. I like to learn about this stuff.

Well according to the article, the production budget was 130M, and the "Releasing Costs" were 55M domestically and 65M foreign, so that would be 250M combined. That doesn't include some of the other expenses.

If you add up all the costs, including home entertainment costs (DVD/Blu-Ray etc) Marvel spent 335.46M in total.

According to the article the studio made 213M from theaters. But it made over 439M in total. So it actually made less than half of it's money in theaters, and it made an estimated 103.9M net profit.

So it didn't manage to completely break even during the theatrical run. But that is not a bad thing (which is what most people would probably think), since it hadn't even made half of it's final income yet.

But I think this is starting to go a bit off topic. It's the Doctor Strange box office thread, and here we are doing an in depth analysis of Ant-Man's box office

So, about Doctor Strange. It's at 189.2M now, and it should be at about 192M after Thursday. According to the weekend predictions it should have about 205-207M by the end of the weekend. 230M+ is starting to look more and more likely.

 

[rayc1971]

I don't think you're making anything up. I just wondered if you were saying that the total budget for AM was about 250M and whether the movie revenues only added up to a loss of about 40M.

I appreciate your perspective on this. I like to learn about this stuff.

antman had a 103mill in net profit not a 40mill loss

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Why you should never underestimate Disney Animation:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4244&p=.htm

THURSDAY AM UPDATE: Moana exceeded last night's estimated Wednesday opening day, delivering a record-breaking pre-Thanksgiving opening day with an estimated $15.6 million, topping the previous record of $15.1 million set by Frozen before it went on to it's current five-day Thanksgiving weekend record opening of $93.5 million. At this point, industry sources are anticipating a possible new record for Moana, which could total as much as $94 million over the film's first five days of release.

 

[InCali]

Well according to the article, the production budget was 130M, and the "Releasing Costs" were 55M domestically and 65M foreign, so that would be 250M combined. That doesn't include some of the other expenses.

If you add up all the costs, including home entertainment costs (DVD/Blu-Ray etc) Marvel spent 335.46M in total.

According to the article the studio made 213M from theaters. But it made over 439M in total. So it actually made less than half of it's money in theaters, and it made an estimated 103.9M net profit.

So it didn't manage to completely break even during the theatrical run. But that is not a bad thing (which is what most people would probably think), since it hadn't even made half of it's final income yet.

But I think this is starting to go a bit off topic. It's the Doctor Strange box office thread, and here we are doing an in depth analysis of Ant-Man's box office

So, about Doctor Strange. It's at 189.2M now, and it should be at about 192M after Thursday. According to the weekend predictions it should have about 205-207M by the end of the weekend. 230M+ is starting to look more and more likely.

Yeah, but if the Mods ask, I'll just say that I was trying to get an example in order to evaluate how DS did. AND it would actually be true.

Thanks for the explanation. It's appreciated. I'll bet a lot of these movies show more of a "loss" than we might think. Creative accounting and all. I'll bet the 104M doesn't include "profits" that some of the Disney subsidiaries made......

 

[ImSGirl95]

So, Disney is breaking their own records?
What else is new?