Marvel Cinematic Universe General Discussion No H8 M8 Just Gr8

[The BlackBear]

Hmmm, I'd heard the rule of thumb was more like twice the budget. But that does depend on the film being made, small budget films will probably spend more on marketing than they did actually making the film (that's why we got so many Insidious films, they're absurdly cheap to make.) That's unlikely to be the case here, even with the massive marketing push IW is getting, just based on the production budget.

[red snow]

4 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Whaaaaaaat. That can only be Hollywood accounting. The most extreme I've ever heard is that big movies typically spend the equivalent of their budget on marketing so they have to double their money to start making bank. But even that sounds a bit much to me tbh.

I definitely think there's "accounting" at play with these things too it's an acceptable part of the industry. Otherwise the insane amount of money they gamble makes little sense. Over a billion to make less 50 million - seems odd unless it's considered a "safe" investment. Seems much more sensible to make the same money on a low budget film where less people need to watch.

I'd be interested to see how much the salaries of the producers have gone up over the years too. Not that I think Feige isn't worth every penny given his success.

I think the other thing to keep in mind with the avenger films is that they are essentially adrenalin shots for all the franchises involved. And this one includes all their franchises. Not sure if ant man is present in the new film but if he is then his sequel will probably have more people tuning in. The same with other marvel films in the near future.

So there's that to keep in mind when thinking about profitability too. Although I'm fairly confident black panther will be a far more profitable film largely due to the cost of cast and director being tiny in comparison to avengers.

Going to see the film this evening as spoilers were becoming harder to avoid.

[Jeor]

I'm sure I read the 3-4 times in an industry article somewhere a few years ago, though reflecting on it maybe it was about production companies that have to find a separate distributor, as I believe the distributor takes a fairly large chunk of the box office revenues. Anyway, it was just a rule of thumb (and maybe just for those types of movies) - apparently a lot of movie deals are quite byzantine with how much money people get and how they calculate profit participation etc, even what the percentage is depending on how many weeks the movie goes for etc.

I guess Disney is its own distributor so that takes care of that, although I wonder whether they actually pocket 100% of the reported box office revenue. There'd be heavy marketing costs involved, though not enough on their own to bring it up to 3-4 times. That being said, a blockbuster like this probably blows all the normal accounting rules out of the water - with so many stars involved, they've probably given away a fair percentage of the box office to stars/producers/writers/Feige etc too.

[Rhom]

I’m looking at Showtimes for Sunday.

I feel like such an old man... this is the second time I’ve ever bought online in advance.

So what the hell is an XD cinema?  There are luxury loungers in both Digital Cinema with reserved seating and XD with the recliners and reserved.

(I’m avoiding 3D like the plague.)

[RumHam]

1 minute ago, Rhom said:

I’m looking at Showtimes for Sunday.

I feel like such an old man... this is the second time I’ve ever bought online in advance.

So what the hell is an XD cinema?  There are luxury loungers in both Digital Cinema with reserved seating and XD with the recliners and reserved.

(I’m avoiding 3D like the plague.)

I had to look it up, I'd never heard of XD either.

Quote

The Cinemark XD entertainment environment features an oversize, wall-to-wall and ceiling-to-floor screen, brand new plush seating, a custom JBL sound system featuring crisp, clear digital sound, and the brightest digital images delivered by a Doremi server and a Barco digital projector.

 

[Rhom]

Interesting.  Thanks!

So it sounds like it’s just their name for the biggest of their big theaters.  They have a ton of Digital screenings on Sunday but only two in the XD.  (Which makes me question what they are doing with that theater the rest of the day.)

Digital will likely be our choice, I’m typically not a cinema snob.

[Darth Richard II]

It depends on the film and marketing and all sorts of other things.

[HokieStone]

5 hours ago, Rhom said:

I’m looking at Showtimes for Sunday.

I feel like such an old man... this is the second time I’ve ever bought online in advance.

So what the hell is an XD cinema?  There are luxury loungers in both Digital Cinema with reserved seating and XD with the recliners and reserved.

(I’m avoiding 3D like the plague.)

Buying in advance is the only way I'll do it these days, with reserved seating.  And typically, we go for the Sunday morning show, which is only $6-$7.  (Of course, I'm old enough to remember when $6 or $7 was a steep price for a movie ticket).  For these big event movies though, I forget to buy them way in advance...so we don't get prime seats, but oh well....

[Rhom]

32 minutes ago, HokieStone said:

Buying in advance is the only way I'll do it these days, with reserved seating.  And typically, we go for the Sunday morning show, which is only $6-$7.  (Of course, I'm old enough to remember when $6 or $7 was a steep price for a movie ticket).  For these big event movies though, I forget to buy them way in advance...so we don't get prime seats, but oh well....

Yeah... I locked in three seats together in the first row of the middle of the theater off to the right side of the screen.  Not ideal, but not in the front front row either.   

[PyroclasticFlow]

PSA to anyone who has watched anything Infinity War or Marvel related on YouTube in the past week or so:

Be Careful. Very F'ing Careful 

I reported a video earlier today, some Russian account, first thing on my home screen was a video with a clear spoiler in the title and thumbnail pic. 

[Corvinus85]

That's it, no more internet for me until tomorrow night after I go see it.

[WarGalley]

I'm just waiting for some spoiler push notification to be sent to my phone. I already have reading suggestions for comic related news show up on my browser homepage based on my internet history. It's just a matter of time.

[The Anti-Targ]

15 hours ago, Jeor said:

This is killing me not being able to discuss it yet! Hopefully some other Australian posts in the spoiler thread eventually.

Based on the presales it looks like Infinity War is going to be the biggest at the box office for 2018. However, given the massive budget (reputedly 300-400 million) and what I've heard is an industry rule of thumb of the box office gross needing 3-4 times budget in order to make a profit, they're really banking a lot on this one.

 

12 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Whaaaaaaat. That can only be Hollywood accounting. The most extreme I've ever heard is that big movies typically spend the equivalent of their budget on marketing so they have to double their money to start making bank. But even that sounds a bit much to me tbh.

Used to be 55% of the box office gross goes to the movie studio, but with China that's dropped a fair bit for movies that do well in China. I think in China the movie studio gets 25%-30% unless its a co-production with a Chinese company.

But assuming 55%, if a movie's budget is $100 million and the marketing is $100 million, then if the studio covers ll of the $100 million marketing the movie would need to make a bit over $360 million at the box office to break even. So 3.6* production budget, which is a lot.

But I'm guessing some of the people that make the other 45% would be helping to pay for the marketing, though. According to Wikipedia distributors and movie theaters pay for some marketing, and rule of thumb is marketing budget is 50% of production budget. Which kinda makes sense, the more expensive a movie is to make the more you need to market the movie to maximise the box office.

So possibly closer to reality is a $100 million movie has a $50 million marketing budget, and the Studio perhaps pays $30 million of that. So with a $130 million total outlay the box office gross for break even for the studio is more like $240 million, so 2.4* production budget. Which aligns with what some movie buff Youtubers have said in the recent past. Take the production budget multiply by 2.5 and that's your break even. Perhaps with a significant reliance on China, and no Chinese co-investor, the multiplier might be closer to 3*production budget maybe higher. I think going with a 3* multiplier of production budget is probably a reasonable estimate of whether a movie broke even for the studio.

I'm guessing IW was north of $200 million in budget. So $600-$700 million break even. But for IW, and the fact it's got very good reviews, over all, it could possibly make that gross in North America alone. But North America returns a higher % to the studio, which means if IW makes $600 in North America alone it will probably made a few $10s of million in profit right there.

[Darth Richard II]

26 minutes ago, WarGalley said:

I'm just waiting for some spoiler push notification to be sent to my phone. I already have reading suggestions for comic related news show up on my browser homepage based on my internet history. It's just a matter of time.

That's how I got spoiled for TFA, stupid reading suggestions.

[red snow]

1 hour ago, WarGalley said:

I'm just waiting for some spoiler push notification to be sent to my phone. I already have reading suggestions for comic related news show up on my browser homepage based on my internet history. It's just a matter of time.

Those features are hellish for spoilers. Screenrant is terrible for putting pictures with their taglines too eg they like to do "Shock death in TFA!" and then have a picture of the character that dies above the headline.

I was even annoyed at how some sites felt that spoiling several of the jokes wasn't a spoiler.

Which is why i caved and went to see it before something major slipped out and I'm pleased I did because the film would be a lot less enjoyable if I'd been made aware of any more details.

[Darth Richard II]

I could go on a long rant(no pun intended) about Screen Rant. It's always something like "Snape Kills Bulbasaur! Warning: Article has Spoilers!"

Well thanks, now I don't need to read your shit article to know the spoiler.

[AverageGuy]

I'd heard there was only one extra scene for Infinity War. But apparently there may be a second, Ant-Man focused scene?

[RumHam]

29 minutes ago, AverageGuy said:

I'd heard there was only one extra scene for Infinity War. But apparently there may be a second, Ant-Man focused scene?

Captain America understood that reference.

 

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Well I just saw a spoiler as a YouTube video title, which was annoying but was something I was kind of expecting anyway. Unfortunately my girlfriend then took it upon herself to tell me a spoiler she read earlier today that I had no idea about. She’s in the doghouse now. We’re watching it tomorrow evening.

[Martell Spy]

On 4/26/2018 at 4:25 PM, red snow said:

Those features are hellish for spoilers. Screenrant is terrible for putting pictures with their taglines too eg they like to do "Shock death in TFA!" and then have a picture of the character that dies above the headline.

I was even annoyed at how some sites felt that spoiling several of the jokes wasn't a spoiler.

Which is why i caved and went to see it before something major slipped out and I'm pleased I did because the film would be a lot less enjoyable if I'd been made aware of any more details.

I had the ending spoilered reading a fairly mainstream website. I didn't click on the article, they put it in the title and a picture. It didn't convey all the details, but it was pretty bad. I'd suggest a media diet.