The Force Awakens Early Star Wars 7 Box Office Prediction Thread - Part 2

[SomeOldGuy]

Back in June, Morgan Stanley broke the costs down thusly:

On the cost side he figures the movie production will run $423 million — including $200 million for the film, $98 million from profit participations, and $125 million to make and distribute home videos. Print and ad costs subtract $175 million for the movie, and $40 million for the home video.

http://deadline.com/2015/06/star-wars-vii-third-highest-grossing-film-forecast-1201452210/

Usually films are considered to hit profitability at 2.5 to 3 times production budget (which would be the $200 million) but even if you use the whole $423 million figure it's still already in the black. And then there's this from the same link:

Disney’s also poised to take a larger than average slice of the theatrical sales pie. The studio typically splits the proceeds in half with domestic theaters. But for SW “we expect Disney retains 55-60% of domestic box office receipts and 40-45% of the international take,” Swinburne says.

Just using the lower end of both projections, as of yesterday that gives The Mouse $358 million from domestic and $271 million from international for a total take of $629 million.

tl;dr Disney is making a killing.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

Back in June, Morgan Stanley broke the costs down thusly:

On the cost side he figures the movie production will run $423 million — including $200 million for the film, $98 million from profit participations, and $125 million to make and distribute home videos. Print and ad costs subtract $175 million for the movie, and $40 million for the home video.

http://deadline.com/2015/06/star-wars-vii-third-highest-grossing-film-forecast-1201452210/

Usually films are considered to hit profitability at 2.5 to 3 times production budget (which would be the $200 million) but even if you use the whole $423 million figure it's still already in the black. And then there's this from the same link:

Disney’s also poised to take a larger than average slice of the theatrical sales pie. The studio typically splits the proceeds in half with domestic theaters. But for SW “we expect Disney retains 55-60% of domestic box office receipts and 40-45% of the international take,” Swinburne says.

Just using the lower end of both projections, as of yesterday that gives The Mouse $358 million from domestic and $271 million from international for a total take of $629 million.

tl;dr Disney is making a killing.

And there you go.

 

[Zant]

It looks like Jurassic World just edged Star Wars by a hair in the 2015 domestic box office stakes. I knew it would be tight!
1. Jurassic World $652,270,625
2. Star Wars: The Force Awakens $651,965,583

Those lucky Dinos. It also looks like Universal surprisingly beat Disney domestically in the calendar year. WB with all their flops still came third (Thanks mainly to 2014 release American Sniper)

 

[JC00]

Marvel and Star Wars cost Disney a combined $8bn.

The MCU has already made Disney back that $4bn it spent in '09 and now Star Wars is well on its way to making Disney back that money it gave Lucas 3 years ago.

Yes $8bn is a large chunk of money but Disney has set itself up very nicely. In fact I think Disney got the better of both those deals.

 

[JC00]

Those lucky Dinos. It also looks like Universal surprisingly beat Disney domestically in the calendar year.

Not sure if I would necessarily call it surprising. Universal had 26 films and Disney only had 15 and it was only a $150m difference.

 

[SomeOldGuy]

Turns out the NYE total was a record breaker too:

Disney's Star Wars: The Force Awakens took in an estimated $22.93 million on Thursday to dominate the daily box office for a 14th consecutive day. The blockbuster seventh installment of the Star Wars franchise easily set a new record for the largest New Year's Eve gross of all-time, as it topped the previous $14.74 million New Year's Eve record take of Avatar by 56 percent.

http://pro.boxoffice.com/latest-new...ome-2-with-588m-the-hateful-eight-5-with-315m

 

[Sithborg]

Universal also had a really, really good year.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

Universal had an amazing year. Both Furious 7 and Jurassic World made over 350 million domestic (with Jurassic World making an eye popping 650+mil) and both made over 1.5 billion worldwide. Not to mention surprise hits like Straight Outta Compton and not so surprise smashes like Minions.

 

[Filmfan93]

Imagine what Disney will do at the BO this year with CA: Civil War, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Finding Dory, Doctor Strange and Star Wars: Rogue One coming out.

 

[Sithborg]

I'm not quite convinced about 2 of those films being as big as everyone seems to be claiming. Rogue One is still an open question.

 

[writer0327]

Marvel and Star Wars cost Disney a combined $8bn.

The MCU has already made Disney back that $4bn it spent in '09 and now Star Wars is well on its way to making Disney back that money it gave Lucas 3 years ago.

Yes $8bn is a large chunk of money but Disney has set itself up very nicely. In fact I think Disney got the better of both those deals.

I always thought Lucas was an idiot to sell Lucasfilm for $4 billion. It's easily worth $50 billion if the business is done correctly.

 

[writer0327]

I'm not quite convinced about 2 of those films being as big as everyone seems to be claiming. Rogue One is still an open question.

Rogue One will clean up. Especially with Darth Vader being announced in the film. Expect $1B world wide.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

Looking Glass is going to have a huge decrease domestically. 3D fever has cooled and they waited too long to make the sequel in order to capitalize on the first film's buzz, not to mention that people are sick to death of Johnny Depp. After all of the awards buzz, even that Whitey Bulger movie didn't do that well at the end of the day. Rogue One will be a big hit but not The Force Awakens huge. Doctor Strange at the very least should pull in Ant-Man numbers, Finding Dory and Civil War will be huge but I still don't see Civil War quite pulling in Avengers numbers.

Well those are my thoughts and I'm sure I will be off on a lot of things as usual. I'm confident that Looking Glass is going to have a huge fall from it's predecessor in North America though. My mind will not change about that one. I'm not saying that it won't make money I just don't think it will do nearly as well as the first.

 

[Hotwire]

It looks like Jurassic World just edged Star Wars by a hair in the 2015 domestic box office stakes. I knew it would be tight!
1. Jurassic World $652,270,625
2. Star Wars: The Force Awakens $651,965,583

If the estimate for NYE is under by more than $305,042, Star Wars wins!

 

[Octoberist]

To me what matters is the 'all time" not the year.

 

[InCali]

To me what matters is the 'all time" not the year.

As someone said, the main thing is that we get a sequel. Think TFA has done well enough to get an ep 8 sequel????

 

[Brem]

I respect you standing your ground. Like what you like, who gives a crap what I or anybody else thinks? I don't make lists based on Rotten Tomatoes scores (and I like the site) I make lists based on what I like, what interested and moved me the most. If I thought Fantastic Four 2015 was a top ten comic book film (it sucks IMO) then that's what would be on my list right now. I will never dig a film just because it is popular or not dig it just because it is unpopular.

It reminds me of the time I had the audacity to join an argument over Star Wars on another forum. I stated that I enjoy all three prequels, all three original films, the games, the books, the comics and figures and trading cards and more.

And apparently, I'm not a true Star Wars fan because of it. And yet in the same thread I remember people who didn't like the prequels, or Episode IV and Vi, but thought Empire was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and no one said anything. So I learned years ago that I like what I like, and to Hell with what anyone thinks of me for it.

I'd sooner live as a fake Star Wars, with my Lego sets and books and countless other pieces of merchandise, and find my enjoyed from all the films, than claim, like them, I only like one film in the franchise.

Could be worse though. Someone took issue so much once, they tried to force feed me those reviews everyone raves about, telling me more or less - I was wrong, they were right, I need to b educated.

I think it goes without saying we never spoke again after that.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

It wouldn't matter if The Force Awakens made less than JW before Jan 1, it's still counted as the top grossing film of 2015 because it is a 2015 release.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Back in June, Morgan Stanley broke the costs down thusly:

On the cost side he figures the movie production will run $423 million — including $200 million for the film, $98 million from profit participations, and $125 million to make and distribute home videos. Print and ad costs subtract $175 million for the movie, and $40 million for the home video.

http://deadline.com/2015/06/star-wars-vii-third-highest-grossing-film-forecast-1201452210/

Usually films are considered to hit profitability at 2.5 to 3 times production budget (which would be the $200 million) but even if you use the whole $423 million figure it's still already in the black. And then there's this from the same link:

Disney’s also poised to take a larger than average slice of the theatrical sales pie. The studio typically splits the proceeds in half with domestic theaters. But for SW “we expect Disney retains 55-60% of domestic box office receipts and 40-45% of the international take,” Swinburne says.

Just using the lower end of both projections, as of yesterday that gives The Mouse $358 million from domestic and $271 million from international for a total take of $629 million.

tl;dr Disney is making a killing.

Apparently they only spent $40m on advertising, as the corrupt sponsors spent their own money, and a lot of their ads were done on Disney platforms.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

It wouldn't matter if The Force Awakens made less than JW before Jan 1, it's still counted as the top grossing film of 2015 because it is a 2015 release.

Yeah, that isn't how it works. It is about when the film is released. So TFA will be the #1 movie of 2015.

 

[Vincanws]

It wouldn't matter if The Force Awakens made less than JW before Jan 1, it's still counted as the top grossing film of 2015 because it is a 2015 release.

I understand, however I still wanted to be able to say Force Awakens was the top gross movie 'during' 2015, but you can't have everything .. it's doing ok as it is and stuff.

 

[Erzengel]

There are also reports that Elvis is an alien. I'd put more credence in those. I'm pretty sure Disney would have viewed anything over a billion as great, given that they didn't pay 4 billion for a single mega hit movie. They paid 4 billion for a franchise.

Yeah, but we aren't talking about National Enquirer with Bigfoot. I'm talking about entertainment news articles.

Secondly this is Star Wars. Last year Spider-Man made 770 million WW, that's low for Spider-Man. If Star Wars only made 1 billion, that'd be low for Star Wars.

There are certain franchises that there are higher expectations for. If BvS makes less than 800 million, if Avengers 3 or Avatar 2 makes under 1 billion because of previous movies.

It's the state of the current movie blockbuster that Star Wars raised the bar for over 40 years ago. $200 million use to be a definition of a blockbuster. Now it's what $350-$400?

If you look at it from that angle, than you also have to consider all the other sources of revenue its brought them. Between the toys, video games, licensed merch, and TV shows, I wouldn't be shocked if they've already paid back the majority of the cost.

There's a possibility that Star Wars could make their money back just based on merchandising even if there weren't new movies, it'd just take longer but I think it was very much possible.

I'm just curious when it starts being technically profitable.

 

[Iceman]

Even ignoring any of the actual income, it's profitable in that the value of the rights are worth more than $4B now even in a firesale.

 

[Sithborg]

It reminds me of the time I had the audacity to join an argument over Star Wars on another forum. I stated that I enjoy all three prequels, all three original films, the games, the books, the comics and figures and trading cards and more.

And apparently, I'm not a true Star Wars fan because of it. And yet in the same thread I remember people who didn't like the prequels, or Episode IV and Vi, but thought Empire was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and no one said anything. So I learned years ago that I like what I like, and to Hell with what anyone thinks of me for it.

I'd sooner live as a fake Star Wars, with my Lego sets and books and countless other pieces of merchandise, and find my enjoyed from all the films, than claim, like them, I only like one film in the franchise.

Could be worse though. Someone took issue so much once, they tried to force feed me those reviews everyone raves about, telling me more or less - I was wrong, they were right, I need to b educated.

I think it goes without saying we never spoke again after that.

A war always breaks out once someone says they want PT ships in a miniature game I play. Very nasty.

Though, I am trying to pound into some people's heads that you don't do the numbers this movie is doing purely on nostalgia. People clearly like the movie.

 

[Iceman]

I always thought Lucas was an idiot to sell Lucasfilm for $4 billion. It's easily worth $50 billion if the business is done correctly.

He got a lot of shares in Disney as part of the deal so he profits if they got a good deal on Lucasfilm too.

And it's easy to think like that now but other (much smaller but same principle) franchises like Spidey and F4 were worth a lot more before recent films tarnished their image and value, and if TFA had failed we might have a similar situation. On the other side Marvel were selling off rights for peanuts before they found how much money was out there for CBM's done well.