Suicide Squad box office prediction - Part 1

[FunkMiller]

Warner Bros. likely spent at least $150 million on P&A for Suicide Squad. That's on top of $175 million budget. For all we know, the budget could've been higher.

Not only that, studios only get a 50/50 split of box office receipts. Studios get even LESS of a return on foreign box office receipts.

With all that in mind $700 million figure isn't all that surprising or unbelievable.

Absolutely. I entirely understand why it seems confusing that SS could need such a huge haul, but when you look at the amount of advertising, promotions and sheer up front selling WB did to get people in the cinema, you can start to understand why they to need make so much money!

 

[Ozbridge]

I don't understand why the topic "whether the movie breaks even" is so passionately discussed. Like, do we actually know the exact money spent on production/ marketing or the exact profit from theatrical release/ product placement/ tie-in/ licensing fee, etc to make know how much profit a movie exactly makes? And secondly discussing break-even level lightly is probably fun for some people from an financial wise POV but what's the point of turning it into an argument? Like, you don't get any of those money?

And who tf cares about millionaire execs at WB losing sleep? Who tf cares about the studio losing money? (unless you are their shareholder). If you like the DCEU then the DCEU will surely continue since apparently MoS 2 has been announced. If you hate it/ don't like what they are doing with it then you can just pick another franchise to root for. Why this talk about break even it's like beating a dead horse.

For those who enjoy a movie, I would think they want it to be successful so there is a sequel. Otherwise, I agree that the money doesn't really matter. But for those of us who enjoy numbers in general, it is fun to track these things.

Oh well I do get it, because I love tracking number too and I also said that light discussion about the financial aspect of a movie is real fun. But what I can't get behind is:

Person A: The movies are severely underperforming. WB is disappointed. Executives are losing sleep. The whole DCEU is shaky. In 5/10 years they'll stop making these movies.

Person B: No, WB is very happy that obscure characters are making big money. New movies are announced. The DCEU will stay here for long time to come.

Like, how the hell can people make an argument about that? Who can judge that which side "wins"?

 

[JLU51306]

Actually I doubt The Incredible Hulk turned a profit just from box office performance. That film made $263 million worldwide against a production budget of $150 million and a distribution/marketing budget that was probably around $75 million. Even being generous and assuming the studio got 70% of the total box office, that's $184 million of revenue versus $225 million of expenses.

$263m of $225m leaves $38m, and from there it's just percentages deducted from that. Movies generally fail to turn a profit when production budgets and marketing outweigh actual gross. Once it clears that finish line, theaters/distributors just get cuts of the profit left over.
That's how it works out to me, I could be wrong. If it did turn a profit, it definitely is small, like my original $5m.

 

[redfirebird2008]

$263m of $225m leaves $38m, and from there it's just percentages deducted from that. Movies generally fail to turn a profit when production budgets and marketing outweigh actual gross. Once it clears that finish line, theaters/distributors just get cuts of the profit left over.
That's how it works out to me, I could be wrong.

The studio isn't getting anywhere near 100% of that $263m gross at the box office. You said so yourself in your earlier post. I was even generous and gave them 70% ($184 million), but really it's more like 50-60% of gross. The movie was a pretty big box office loser for the studio and didn't have enough of a fanbase to justify a sequel.

 

[redfirebird2008]

How did they bring back $287million? The movie only made $668million worldwide. The budget/marketing was like 60% of the total gross. I'm not aware of any studio making that kind of cut at the box office - either domestic theaters or international.

He meant they received $287 million of the $668 million (43% of the gross...very reasonable). Then start taking out the expenses for budget, marketing, etc. They spent around $400 million, so they lost over $100 million just on the box office performance of the film. Luckily for them the merchandising, TV rights, and home video helped them break even or turn a small profit.

 

[JKKS085]

How did they bring back $287million? The movie only made $668million worldwide. The budget/marketing was like 60% of the total gross. I'm not aware of any studio making that kind of cut at the box office - either domestic theaters or international.

They break it down as follows:
- Domestic Theatrical Rental $148.410M
- International Theatrical Rental $123.6M
- China Theatrical Rental $15.750M

For a Gross Revenue of $287.76M in theaters (only).

 

[kguillou]

My thing is, are these HUGE production budgets necessary? With BvS was it really necessary to have a $250 million budget? I mean, I know theres the actors' salaries, then shooting on location, and special effects work costs a **** ton by itself. But im wondering if that movie, and SS could've slashed its budget by $50 million and not have compromised the final product. I mean. Where's all this money going ultimately? CGI?

 

[redfirebird2008]

My thing is, are these HUGE production budgets necessary? With BvS was it really necessary to have a $250 million budget? I mean, I know theres the actors' salaries, then shooting on location, and special effects work costs a **** ton by itself. But im wondering if that movie, and SS could've slashed its budget by $50 million and not have compromised the final product. I mean. Where's all this money going ultimately? CGI?

CGI, location shots, explosions, etc. Adds up quick. But I agree with you that the budgets nowadays are ridiculous. Budgets have skyrocketed and are much bigger relative to inflation on ticket prices. That means profitability is more difficult to achieve than decades ago. Ultimately though I believe the studios view it mostly as a giant commercial for the merchandise side of their business.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

My thing is, are these HUGE production budgets necessary? With BvS was it really necessary to have a $250 million budget? I mean, I know theres the actors' salaries, then shooting on location, and special effects work costs a **** ton by itself. But im wondering if that movie, and SS could've slashed its budget by $50 million and not have compromised the final product. I mean. Where's all this money going ultimately? CGI?

SS really should have had a lower budget and no extensive reshoots that would further escalate the budget but come on now bro, don't you want to see DCEU movies to have epic scale and grandeur. I definitely do but the bottomline is they hafta make very good movies at the end of the day which will be appreciated by all and if the movies are great, BO numbers would follow suit and profits will be made and we will see more from DCEU.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Isn't this supposed to be the SS Box Office thread?

 

[idiot09]

Yeah,we really went off topic there.Anyway,no more of that discussion for me.I believe Ive said what I had to say,and thats that.

Anyway,back to SS.Can anyone tell me how much drop in the second week for SS is acceptable as "good" ? 60%?65%?

 

[SomeOldGuy]

Anyway,back to SS.Can anyone tell me how much drop in the second week for SS is acceptable as "good" ? 60%?65%?

IMO:

50% or less: not happening but would be mind-blowing.

51-55%: really good hold. Extremely unlikely IMO.

56-60%: Par for the course for a big CBM movie.

61-65%: Meh. See if it stabilizes in weekend 3.

66-70%: bad

70%+: ouch.

I'm betting in the 59-62% range.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Yeah,we really went off topic there.Anyway,no more of that discussion for me.I believe Ive said what I had to say,and thats that.

Anyway,back to SS.Can anyone tell me how much drop in the second week for SS is acceptable as "good" ? 60%?65%?

I guess a 60% drop from the OW will be very much acceptable from WB's point of view.

 

[Ozbridge]

IMO:

51-55%: really good hold. Extremely unlikely IMO.

56-60%: Par for the course for a big CBM movie.

61-65%: Meh. See if it stabilizes in weekend 3.

66-70%: bad

I think anything under 55% is fantastic as SS is a big movie with weekdays eating from its weekend gross. 55-60% is really good and 60-65% is normal.

 

[Xrated48]

IMO:

50% or less: not happening but would be mind-blowing.

51-55%: really good hold. Extremely unlikely IMO.

56-60%: Par for the course for a big CBM movie.

61-65%: Meh. See if it stabilizes in weekend 3.

66-70%: bad

70%+: ouch.

I'm betting in the 59-62% range.

Anything over 60% will probably be considered bad by Warner Brothers.

 

[kguillou]

SS really should have had a lower budget and no extensive reshoots that would further escalate the budget but come on now bro, don't you want to see DCEU movies to have epic scale and grandeur. I definitely do but the bottomline is they hafta make very good movies at the end of the day which will be appreciated by all and if the movies are great, BO numbers would follow suit and profits will be made and we will see more from DCEU.

Agreed 100%. I mean, honestly, I don't know what special effects company Snyder or if he even does some of it himself, but his movies have incredible grand scale special effects. So, i dont doubt that the money is being put to good use. I just can't help but wonder if these budgets HAVE to be as high as they are and if there's a lot of extraneous spending.

I mean look at a movie like Chronicle, for example, that ending set piece was incredibly well done. A big epic city brawl, like MoS, and that movie was done under $12 million. Now, granted, MoS' Zod fight was much more grand scale, but you see my point.

 

[TheVileOne]

My point is this, media isn't manipulating the narrative by coming up with the $700 million figure to break even. It's probably quite accurate.

 

[Kathemy]

I've heard both $600m, $800m and now $700m. Clearly all of them can't be right. Probably none of them are.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

This has gone on for too long now, even if the budget of SS is 175 million+22 million for reshoots, it adds up to about 200 million when rounded off and add the budget for P&A which is closer to 100 million, even then the break even point is 600 million.

I think the 22 million spent on reshoots were already included in the budget and I could be wrong about this but it's still what I think is true and then the break even point becomes even lower than it was before.

 

[FunkMiller]

This has gone on for too long now, even if the budget of SS is 175 million+22 million for reshoots, it adds up to about 200 million when rounded off and add the budget for P&A which is closer to 100 million, even then the break even point is 600 million.

I think the 22 million spent on reshoots were already included in the budget and I could be wrong about this but it's still what I think is true and then the break even point becomes even lower than it was before.

Where did you get 100 million for p&a? I mean, more than fair enough if you have a source, but just would like something firm, given that that's quite low for a film of this type.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Where did you get 100 million for p&a? I mean, more than fair enough if you have a source, but just would like something firm, given that that's quite low for a film of this type.

I assumed it.

I don't really know what's par for the course for cbm's in terms of the P&A budget. What do you think it is closer to?

 

[FunkMiller]

I assumed it.

I don't really know what's par for the course for cbm's in terms of the P&A budget. What do you think it is closer to?

Ah, well. The huge budget p&a question first really reared its ugly head when Transformers AOE came out, and it was established through very good sources that they spent $100 million on domestic advertising alone. As this was a farcically large amount of cash, you can imagine how many eyebrows were raised! But, it seems that this high expenditure is nothing actually that unusual.

For a massive wide release movie like SS in this day and age, the rule seems to be anything up to the entire budget again for worldwide advertising. Given the sheer amount of wall to wall ads that were around pre the film's release, a total p&a budget of 175 million is not much of a stretch.

And with turnover for the studio of only 40% to 50% of total receipts, you can see how things get tight very quick, even for a film like SS that has opened big.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Ah, well. The huge budget p&a question first really reared its ugly head when Transformers AOE came out, and it was established through very good sources that they spent $100 million on domestic advertising alone. As this was a farcically large amount of cash, you can imagine how many eyebrows were raised! But, it seems that this high expenditure is nothing actually that unusual.

For a massive wide release movie like SS in this day and age, the rule seems to be anything up to the entire budget again for worldwide advertising. Given the sheer amount of wall to wall ads that were around pre the film's release, a total p&a budget of 175 million is not much of a stretch.

And with turnover for the studio of only 40% to 50% of total receipts, you can see how things get tight very quick, even for a film like SS that has opened big.

Damn, I am genuinely shocked at the moment. That is a huge number.

I can see where you are coming from, SS definitely had a big marketing campaign but is it that big? Wow, I am truly baffled right now.

Then what was the P&A budget of GOTG?

 

[Kathemy]

The honest-to-God truth is nobody knows. At least nobody who is talking.

 

[Greenlite]

MOS's marketing was reported as 150M, so it's reasonable to estimate the SS marketing is around that range as well. 800M to break even only makes sense if WB shuts down all contract with toy/blu ray/cable/rental/clothing companies and only live on box office receipts alone.

A reasonable 2nd weekend drop off for me would be 65%, it's summer school holidays so weekdays are going to perform better, hence the bigger weekend drop off than usual, and Guardians dropped 55% which is fantastic, so around 60% is the par for SS but taking into account that teens/fans rushed out in the OD/OW, school holidays, Marvel's mediocre OD/OW compared to DC (I believe more audiences for Guardians are 35 y/o+ and attracted to the film for its unique soundtrack etc, and they are not the demo that rush to watch movies OW, but I would be happy to be proven wrong though it's just my guess), so taking all that into account I think 60% is great, 65% is par, closer to 70% is a bomb.