Like, the idea that a film makes less than half a billion dollars is a failure?
It’s not as crazy as you think.
First, the reported budget for a movie is almost always only the production budget. The general rule of thumb is that the marketing budget is 1x the production budget, especially for high profile releases like these. So a Marvel movie that cost $200m to make cost another $200m in advertising, meaning it needs to net the studio $400m to break even.
Second, the reported box office totals we get on sites like Box Office Mojo represent gross ticket sales, before exhibitors take their cut, and before high profile filmmakers and stars take their backend points. Christopher Nolan notably got 20% of the gross revenue for Oppenheimer, though this is a pretty extreme example.
Third, movies are a risky business. So you need your hits to be big hits to make up for the money you lose on expensive duds. Even if a new Marvel movie makes a $50-$100m net profit, that isn’t enough to cover the huge amount of money lost on something like Dial of Destiny.
It’s not as crazy as you think.
First, the reported budget for a movie is almost always only the production budget. The general rule of thumb is that the marketing budget is 1x the production budget, especially for high profile releases like these. So a Marvel movie that cost $200m to make cost another $200m in advertising, meaning it needs to net the studio $400m to break even.
Second, the reported box office totals we get on sites like Box Office Mojo represent gross ticket sales, before exhibitors take their cut, and before high profile filmmakers and stars take their backend points. Christopher Nolan notably got 20% of the gross revenue for Oppenheimer, though this is a pretty extreme example.
Third, movies are a risky business. So you need your hits to be big hits to make up for the money you lose on expensive duds. Even if a new Marvel movie makes a $50-$100m net profit, that isn’t enough to cover the huge amount of money lost on something like Dial of Destiny.