The Last Jedi The Last Jedi Box Office Prediction Thread - Part 1

[Warlock]

Geez. Falling below RO is ungood. Falling below BvS is double plus ungood.

I forgot to mention, any 1984 references should be appreciated, which I do; especially the relevance nowadays. Excellent work.

 

[dataSlave]

You mean Rogue One, that needed massive reshoots that weren't cheap? That Rogue One? Also 65% of domestic gross is a new deal for Disney. More then what they got before.

RO was still $106 million cheaper to produce than TFA. Now maybe $15-20 million of that difference was in lower back end percentages paid out but that still leaves an enormous difference in cost. Actors' payroll alone is likely $30 million higher for TLJ vs RO.

Per Hollywood Reporter, only ONE cast member in RO received a 7 figure salary - Felicity Jones.

Sources say Rogue One: A Star Wars Story protagonist Felicity Jones was, by far, the highest-paid castmember. Coming off her best actress nomination for The Theory of Everything, Jones was able to negotiate for a seven-figure upfront salary to play Rebel fighter Jyn Erso. Her other castmates, including Diego Luna and Ben Mendelsohn, took home significantly less, not cracking mid-six figures.

Sounds like $1-2 million for Jones and $200-300k each for the others. That is a $25-30 million difference in payroll between RO and TLJ right there.

 

[Agent Orange]

I'm kind of surprised that Donnie Yen wasn't able to negotiate a higher payday considering that Disney really wanted him and he worked the Chinese promotional rounds like mad. (It didn't work.)

 

[DarthSkywalker]

RO was still $106 million cheaper to produce than TFA. Now maybe $15-20 million of that difference was in lower back end percentages paid out but that still leaves an enormous difference in cost. Actors' payroll alone is likely $30 million higher for TLJ vs RO.

Per Hollywood Reporter, only ONE cast member in RO received a 7 figure salary - Felicity Jones.

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Sounds like $1-2 million for Jones and $200-300k each for the others. That is a $25-30 million difference in payroll between RO and TLJ right there.

Based on what? Disney's numbers? I thought they weren't to be trusted?

How many actors in TFA do you think got 7 figures? Also, your link doesn't work.

Also, another bit of the fun. RDJ made all his money on the backend with the Avengers. That wasn't in the original budget. So how much did it really cost?

 

[dataSlave]

Based on what? Disney's numbers? I thought they weren't to be trusted?

How many actors in TFA do you think got 7 figures? Also, your link doesn't work.

Also, another bit of the fun. RDJ made all his money on the backend with the Avengers. That wasn't in the original budget. So how much did it really cost?

The link should be fixed now. Disney is NOT to be trusted. But too many other people have access to the salary data for a deception to work for long. And a lot of the leaks come from agents, lawyers, accountants and others that have nothing to do with Disney. OTOH they are the only ones who have all the data to know what the total production budget looks like so it's pretty easy to keep that one under wraps.

As for TFA certainly Harrison Ford, Carrie Fischer and likely Mark Hamill as well were in 7 figures. Ford would have been in 8 figures. I linked the source on that one above.

 

[dataSlave]

I'm kind of surprised that Donnie Yen wasn't able to negotiate a higher payday considering that Disney really wanted him and he worked the Chinese promotional rounds like mad. (It didn't work.)

I can see that if he was trying to jump from Chinese star to global star. And the promotional stuff inside China probably counts against the marketing budget rather than production.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

The links should be fixed now. Disney is NOT to be trusted. But too many other people have access to the salary data for a deception to work for long. And a lot of the leaks come from agents, lawyers, accountants and others that have nothing to do with Disney. OTOH they are the only ones who have all the data to know what the total production budget looks like so it's pretty easy to keep that one under wraps.

I thought it was going to have a comparison to TFA. It didn't. That is just the article that was released to point out the female lead was actually making the most. Rumors were that Daisy didn't break 300k, and she was the main character of TFA. Ford probably made a ton. Fisher and Hamill, probably a good bit as well. But how does that suddenly equal 30m more? You think they paid Oscar, Boyega, or anyone else that isn't one of the big three more then Ridley? With Kennedy there?

So how do you know how much the reshoots cost? The rush on post production to cover it?

 

[dataSlave]

I thought it was going to have a comparison to TFA. It didn't. That is just the article that was released to point out the female lead was actually making the most. Rumors were that Daisy didn't break 300k, and she was the main character of TFA. Ford probably made a ton. Fisher and Hamill, probably a good bit as well. But how does that suddenly equal 30m more? You think they paid Oscar, Boyega, or anyone else that isn't one of the big three more then Ridley? With Kennedy there?

So how do you know how much the reshoots cost? The rush on post production to cover it?

The numbers are in post #559 one page back. Bottom line is that TLJ had a similar cost structure to TFA and even higher for the top stars' salaries. RO doesn't even compare in that regard. I don't claim to know what the reshoots cost. Are you saying RO was much more expensive than the $200 million that just about every source I've seen for it?

Re: your prior reference to RDJ, I'm pretty sure he has a unique situation. Not really germane to discussion of non-RDJ films.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

The numbers are in post #559 one page back. Bottom line is that TLJ had a similar cost structure to TFA and even higher for the top stars' salaries. RO doesn't even compare in that regard. I don't claim to know what the reshoots cost. Are you saying RO was much more expensive than the $200 million that just about every source I've seen for it?

Re: your prior reference to RDJ, I'm pretty sure he has a unique situation. Not really germane to discussion of non-RDJ films.

I am saying numbers that are based on the original estimates are what they are. Numbers based on the original estimates. They haven't factored in the reshoots or other such things.

Any such difference in cost is easily to cover when one movie is making significantly more. Which TLJ is.

 

[Warlock]

I am saying numbers that are based on the original estimates are what they are. Numbers based on the original estimates. They haven't factored in the reshoots or other such things.

Any such difference in cost is easily to cover when one movie is making significantly more. Which TLJ is.

So you're saying, that you think the estimates for each film's costs are vastly understated in comparison to the actual stated figures (let alone the advertising/marketing). Which in turn means that they all made far less profit than they claim. But we shouldn't worry about that at all, because they all made sooo much box office money, despite say TLJ bringing in 700+ million less than TFA, or only 250ish million more than RO, that's immaterial to the discussion eh...

Disregard the fact it is undoubtedly going to be the biggest loser in sequel history, in terms of box office discrepancy (TFA 2B+, TLJ 1.3ish). Don't worry it's Disney and Star Wars, nothing went wrong, everything is great, totally expected, nothing to see here, big success, stop focussing on the details, move along now.

We might as well stop the box office discussion thread here, seeing as we all have it so wrong and we know nothing in comparison to you, plus mathematics and statistics are bad, don't pay any attention to people saying it didn't make much money in comparison to costs, which by the way were understated, Hahaha you guys know nothing!

Amazing, do you have shares in Disney or do you perhaps work in Disney's accounts reconciliation department? If so, I'll happily await your provision of the exact figures involved so I can rest easily in my ignorance. t:

 

[DarthSkywalker]

So you're saying, that you think the estimates for each film's costs are vastly understated in comparison to the actual stated figures (let alone the advertising/marketing). Which in turn means that they all made far less profit than they claim. But we shouldn't worry about that at all, because they all made sooo much box office money, despite say TLJ bringing in 700+ million less than TFA, or only 250ish million more than RO, that's immaterial to the discussion eh...

Disregard the fact it is undoubtedly going to be the biggest loser in sequel history, in terms of box office discrepancy (TFA 2B+, TLJ 1.3ish). Don't worry it's Disney and Star Wars, nothing went wrong, everything is great, totally expected, nothing to see here, big success, stop focussing on the details, move along now.

We might as well stop the box office discussion thread here, seeing as we all have it so wrong and we know nothing in comparison to you, plus mathematics and statistics are bad, don't pay any attention to people saying it didn't make much money in comparison to costs, which by the way were understated, Hahaha you guys know nothing!

Amazing, do you have shares in Disney or do you perhaps work in Disney's accounts reconciliation department? If so, I'll happily await your provision of the exact figures involved so I can rest easily in my ignorance. t:

No. I am saying each film and studio is different and it depends on the picture they want to paint. WB wanted to make it look like OotP lost money so they added on cost to balloon the budget. Also, you are ignoring that TLJ is clearing more per dollar then either TFA or RO. Also where are you getting it only has another 100m in the tank?

You do realize that adjusted, Empire lost a lot more to Star Wars right? Domestic adjusted alone, it lost nearly 600m and made signifcantly less overseas as well.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=starwars.htm

I do find it amazing that a film that will at worst tap out at the 9 highest grossing film of all time, and the 6th highest grossing film in domestic history, is somehow a problem. You also bring up cost associated with this movie, ignoring the sponsorship money they get to cover such things. Or how much Disney advertises in its own ecosystem. Or that they are clearing hundreds of millions in toys.

But hey, you have a sky is falling narrative. Don't let actual facts of hundreds of millions of dollars in profits get in the way of your speculation.

 

[jmc]

Eh, Hollywood accounting is one of those things you can only ever ball park. My personal opinion is many of these big budgeted movie probably cost a lot more than what we are told.

 

[dataSlave]

No. I am saying each film and studio is different and it depends on the picture they want to paint. WB wanted to make it look like OotP lost money so they added on cost to balloon the budget. Also, you are ignoring that TLJ is clearing more per dollar then either TFA or RO. Also where are you getting it only has another 100m in the tank?

You do realize that adjusted, Empire lost a lot more to Star Wars right? Domestic adjusted alone, it lost nearly 600m and made signifcantly less overseas as well.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=starwars.htm

I do find it amazing that a film that will at worst tap out at the 9 highest grossing film of all time, and the 6th highest grossing film in domestic history, is somehow a problem. You also bring up cost associated with this movie, ignoring the sponsorship money they get to cover such things. Or how much Disney advertises in its own ecosystem. Or that they are clearing hundreds of millions in toys.

But hey, you have a sky is falling narrative. Don't let actual facts of hundreds of millions of dollars in profits get in the way of your speculation.

No one here is saying the sky is falling. We are saying that TLJ will will make a profit. But it will make at least $100 million less profit than RO because of higher budgets. And there are hundreds of millions less in merchandise profits from shipments being cut in half.

The comparison to Empire Strikes Back is absurd. TLJ's gross box office will be about 5.2x even the low-ball production cost figures Disney is leaking. Empire brought in over 30.0x it's production cost. The ratio means expenses are a dominant figure when calculating profit for TLJ and a rounding error for Empire. You're comparing apples and skyscrapers.

Disney cut the budget sharply for the next movie after Pirates of the Caribbean 4. I suspect we will see the same thing on a smaller scale here.

 

[JOE]

Where is everyone figuring this movie will finish up at?

 

[dataSlave]

So you're saying, that you think the estimates for each film's costs are vastly understated in comparison to the actual stated figures (let alone the advertising/marketing). Which in turn means that they all made far less profit than they claim. But we shouldn't worry about that at all, because they all made sooo much box office money, despite say TLJ bringing in 700+ million less than TFA, or only 250ish million more than RO, that's immaterial to the discussion eh...

Disregard the fact it is undoubtedly going to be the biggest loser in sequel history, in terms of box office discrepancy (TFA 2B+, TLJ 1.3ish). Don't worry it's Disney and Star Wars, nothing went wrong, everything is great, totally expected, nothing to see here, big success, stop focussing on the details, move along now.

We might as well stop the box office discussion thread here, seeing as we all have it so wrong and we know nothing in comparison to you, plus mathematics and statistics are bad, don't pay any attention to people saying it didn't make much money in comparison to costs, which by the way were understated, Hahaha you guys know nothing!

Amazing, do you have shares in Disney or do you perhaps work in Disney's accounts reconciliation department? If so, I'll happily await your provision of the exact figures involved so I can rest easily in my ignorance. t:

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

 

[dataSlave]

Where is everyone figuring this movie will finish up at?

Looks like around $1.3 billion global box office.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Where is everyone figuring this movie will finish up at?

I'm looking at a few numbers/comps and it tells me that if TLJ continues to keep pace with R1 as it is after 21 days, it'll gross 684.95 million OS-China. Similarly if TLJ holds steady at the same percentage of TFA after 21 days, it stands to collect 707.6 million OS-China. Let's go with the average of the 2 and we get 696 million. Add the 40 million from China then the OS total becomes 736 million. From domestic let's go with a conservative 624 million. So the WW gross becomes (736+624)=1.36B. I do think that TLJ should be able to hit those numbers or at least get to 1.35B at the end of it's BO run.

 

[JOE]

I'm looking at a few numbers/comps and it tells me that if TLJ continues to keep pace with R1 as it is after 21 days, it'll gross 684.95 million OS-China. Similarly if TLJ holds steady at the same percentage of TFA after 21 days, it stands to collect 707.6 million OS-China. Let's go with the average of the 2 and we get 696 million. Add the 40 million from China then the OS total becomes 736 million. From domestic let's go with a conservative 624 million. So the WW gross becomes (736+624)=1.36B. I do think that TLJ should be able to hit those numbers or at least get to 1.35B at the end of it's BO run.

Thanks for the math, very informative!

Still a solid box office run. A bit underwhelming after TFA, but that was a perfect storm. Disney has nothing to be worried about. All that means is that Episode 9 now has a chance to beat the one before it. No one saw TLJ passing TFA. I didn't even see it coming close. I predicted around JW numbers if I remember correctly.

 

[dataSlave]

I'm looking at a few numbers/comps and it tells me that if TLJ continues to keep pace with R1 as it is after 21 days, it'll gross 684.95 million OS-China. Similarly if TLJ holds steady at the same percentage of TFA after 21 days, it stands to collect 707.6 million OS-China. Let's go with the average of the 2 and we get 696 million. Add the 40 million from China then the OS total becomes 736 million. From domestic let's go with a conservative 624 million. So the WW gross becomes (736+624)=1.36B. I do think that TLJ should be able to hit those numbers or at least get to 1.35B at the end of it's BO run.

Your numbers for the US and China sound very reasonable. I'm having trouble with the non-China overseas number. Non-China total today is $604 million. $696 million would be $92 million more - almost double the expected US box office remaining. While Europe has been strong for TLJ, I'm not sure it can carry it quite that far.

 

[MagnarTheGreat]

domestic/foreign splits:
The Force Awakens: 45.3% / 54.7%
The Last Jedi: 47.5% / 52.5% (currently)
Rogue One: 50.4% / 49.6%

If TLJ finishes with $631 million domestic scenario:
45.3% / 54.7% - 1.39 billion worldwide
47.5% / 52.5% - 1.36 billion worldwide
50.4% / 49.6% - 1.25 billion worldwide

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Your numbers for the US and China sound very reasonable.

I'm having trouble with the non-China overseas number. Non-China total today is $604 million. $696 million would be $92 million more - almost double the expected US box office remaining. While Europe has been strong for TLJ, I'm not sure it can carry it quite that far.

You have a good point, TLJ might not make that much in the end so let's consider a wide array of possibilities

Before the 4th weekend or at 21 days, TLJ's IBO was at 573.5 million. Nao, at the same juncture R1's [IBO-China] was 66.34% of TLJ's and TLJ itself was at 70.18% of TFA's [IBO-China] at the same point in their OS run.

Extrapolating from there by keeping the % same (assuming no escalation or reduction), TLJ w.r.t R1 ends up at 684.94 million and w.r.t TFA it ends up at 707 million. The average of the above two is 696 million.

I'm using the 21 days specifically because it is sort of like the last date before the China release. So it provides some uniformity in drops and potential legs/multiplier calculation from the OW. Also looking at it while I'm putting R1 & TFA's OS run after 21 days in a comp is giving me a good result that is close to the final outcome for both. R1 does lose about 1.5% in the end tho.

So if I deduct 2% from my earlier method of TLJ against TFA, the former will finish with 686.84 million.

OTOH, TLJ's OS weekend was 64.7 million including 28.3 million from China. So without China, the OS weekend is 36.4 million. But it's not that high since in some of the countries the weekends are counted starting earlier than on Friday. So Let's say the actual weekend number is revised at 30 million (for round number's sake).

TFA's domestic and foreign multipliers are basically exactly the same after 21 days at [2.49 x OW], so it's not too much of a stretch to assume that the rest of the run will play out close to each other. TLJ's domestic multiplier after it's 4th weekend should be close to at least 2.3 (R1 did 2.48 so I'm going with a bit below that one). So 2.3 times 30 million gives us 69 million. That means the final (OS-China) figure will be [573.5+30+69] = 672.5 million.

TFA managed to increase by 23.28% after it's 21 day OS multiplier & R1 managed to increase 19.41% in the same method. There is clearly a trend here as according to my other calculations, TLJ has fallen behind both TFA & R1 barring last week. So let's assume TLJ falls a smidgen below R1 and increases 18% from it's 21 day multiplier.

That would mean a final multiplier of 2.93 for OS-China. The OS OW for TLJ was 230.3 million so the final OS-China total from my method would be 676.73 million.

What about the final 3 or the 3 new projections?? Do they seem reasonable?? I think 675 million (OS-China) is achievable. What do you think??

 

[dataSlave]

You have a good point, TLJ might not make that much in the end so let's consider a wide array of possibilities

Why do I feel like the straight man in this comic duo, just handing you set up lines? Please don't make me remind everyone that I am NOT the Plucky Comic Relief.

Before the 4th weekend or at 21 days, TLJ's IBO was at 573.5 million. Nao, at the same juncture R1's [IBO-China] was 66.34% of TLJ's and TLJ itself was at 70.18% of TFA's [IBO-China] at the same point in their OS run.

Extrapolating from there by keeping the % same (assuming no escalation or reduction), TLJ w.r.t R1 ends up at 684.94 million and w.r.t TFA it ends up at 707 million. The average of the above two is 696 million.

I'm using the 21 days specifically because it is sort of like the last date before the China release. So it provides some uniformity in drops and potential legs/multiplier calculation from the OW. Also looking at it while I'm putting R1 & TFA's OS run after 21 days in a comp is giving me a good result that is close to the final outcome for both. R1 does lose about 1.5% in the end tho.

So if I deduct 2% from my earlier method of TLJ against TFA, the former will finish with 686.84 million.

OTOH, TLJ's OS weekend was 64.7 million including 28.3 million from China. So without China, the OS weekend is 36.4 million. But it's not that high since in some of the countries the weekends are counted starting earlier than on Friday. So Let's say the actual weekend number is revised at 30 million (for round number's sake).

TFA's domestic and foreign multipliers are basically exactly the same after 21 days at [2.49 x OW], so it's not too much of a stretch to assume that the rest of the run will play out close to each other. TLJ's domestic multiplier after it's 4th weekend should be close to at least 2.3 (R1 did 2.48 so I'm going with a bit below that one). So 2.3 times 30 million gives us 69 million. That means the final (OS-China) figure will be [573.5+30+69] = 672.5 million.

TFA managed to increase by 23.28% after it's 21 day OS multiplier & R1 managed to increase 19.41% in the same method. There is clearly a trend here as according to my other calculations, TLJ has fallen behind both TFA & R1 barring last week. So let's assume TLJ falls a smidgen below R1 and increases 18% from it's 21 day multiplier.

That would mean a final multiplier of 2.93 for OS-China. The OS OW for TLJ was 230.3 million so the final OS-China total from my method would be 676.73 million.

What about the final 3 or the 3 new projections?? Do they seem reasonable?? I think 675 million (OS-China) is achievable. What do you think??

I've been looking at some of the individual markets and it would not surprise me to see Intl ex-China outperform the domestic market by 40-50% from here to the end of the box office run. So far that has been a 10% differential including China but European markets in particular are holding much stronger W2W.

If the domestic has $50 million left that puts non-China at $70-75 million. Added to the current $604 million yields $674-679 million. This is interesting because there are so many moving parts.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Thanks for the math, very informative!

Still a solid box office run. A bit underwhelming after TFA, but that was a perfect storm.

It's still a very good BO total. The OW was gigantic and the signs were all very good and indicated a much better run than what transpired since then. So yeah, the run post OW has been underwhelming.

I predicted around JW numbers if I remember correctly.

That would 1.67B WW. TLJ will come in 315 million or so short. Goes to show what a juggernaut JW was in summer of '15.

 

[dataSlave]

It's still a very good BO total. The OW was gigantic and the signs were all very good and indicated a much better run than what transpired since then. So yeah, the run post OW has been underwhelming.

Based on OW, TLJ looked like it was going to blow the doors off RO. But since then the performance of the 2 movies has been increasingly similar.

+$65.0 million OW vs RO
+$7.5 million 2nd w/e
+$2.9 million 3rd w/e
+$1.4 million 4th w/e

It's certainly not what anyone expected or wanted 3 weeks ago. I'm sure they were pleased by OW but what came next had to be a shock.

 

[InCali]

You have a point when you look at total profit but consider that each of those subsidiaries has its own expenses, capital investment and need to show a profit to justify its existence to corporate. So some of the marketing expense for movies becomes revenue to other subsidiaries but most of that money does not remain with Disney - only the profit on that business does. The rest is paid out in salary to the employees of that other subsidiary and expenses paid to their vendors.

Disney's profit margin is 17% net. So roughly one sixth of the dollars they spend this way with their own subsidiaries will stay with the company. I have no way to estimate the dollars or percentage of all marketing spending involved since Disney does not give investors transparency at that level. I'm assuming their transfer pricing between subsidiaries is reasonably fair since their business segments don't vary too much from the relative profitability one would expect.

So that just leaves the issue of expense attribution to corporate rather than individual projects. Disney seems to do a lot of that. If you look at the income statement there is a line called Selling, General and Administrative Expenses. SG&A is like financial purgatory and for Disney it amounted to $8.18 billion last year or 15% of total revenue. That's both a huge dollar amount and a huge chunk of sales where project expenses can be hidden and I think a fair chunk of movie production expenses are hiding but there's no way to prove it. Just for comparison, Ford Motor averages half that as a percentage of sales.

Disney is notorious in the industry for low balling expenses for PR purposes. But every once in a while the truth slips out. They tried to claim that Pirates of the Caribbean 4 was a $250 million movie. But Forbes dug deep and found UK tax filings Disney used to claim a large (20%) tax credit on production costs. Turns out they were telling the British tax authorities that Pirates 4 cost $410 million to produce.

Sorry if that's TMI. I tend to really geek on topics I care about.

That's cool. Geek away. You should hear me when people start talking about statistics. I wasn't suggesting that there was NO cost when you pay a subsidiary; just that the overall cost when you are paying yourself is less than if you are paying an outside vendor. There are other advantages also. When I worked at UCLA in the IT department, we did everything in house that we possibly could. Only in rare, specialized cases did we work with outside vendors. Why? Because we could do it cheaper and didn't have to turn a big profit. In addition, when you have someone doing something essentially in house, they become familiar with what you want done (less mistakes), they are familiar with the facilities (less time), as well as keeping money in house. Managing the projects is a lot less impactful on the organization because, in part, of the above. At UCLA, this probably wasn't as big of a deal as in the private sector, but greasing your own wheels rather than paying money that goes out the window is a nice touch.

Say that Disney can sub $100M in expenses for a big budget movie (if you are wondering if I pulled that number out of my arse, the answer is "yes") and the profit is 16% (could be more or could be less depending on the specific group). That saves you about 16M right off the top on expenses. True? That sounds like a pretty good chunk of change to me (translates to probably over 30M in BO revenue??) as well as keeping your own people employed, having a group of people who know exactly what you want, probably less overhead than for other projects because of the reasons I listed above, and having a stable revenue stream above and beyond the outside projects they do.

I'm not a business guy, but having a varied company like Disney that can handle so many aspects of movie making would seem to be a nice advantage.