Still changing the subject instead of admitting you were wrong?
John Carter had a budget of $300 million. It grossed $254 million and change. Difference of $45,560,900. They took a loss of $172,780,450. Difference there of $127,219,550. Make of that what you will. I threw out the $200 million figure because
that's what Disney initially said they would lose on the film.
Now, since you ignored the actual point I made, I will reiterate.
Big budget films must make more than double their budget to turn a profit. Avatar had to make $1.6
billion to turn a profit. Titanic had to pull $1.1 billion to turn a profit (in 1997 dollars). Harry Potter had to earn $789 million to turn a profit. Lord of the Rings: ROTK had to pull in $664 million to turn a profit. Transformer 3 had to pull $756 million to turn a profit. All of those are far more than 3X their budget.
You said:
The standby is a movie has to gross two and a half times cost to break even, but you throw that out when the budget gets that high because it won't cost 200 million for marketing. The marketing costs shouldn't be any higher than an average studio release, and could even be less because it is a well known property and there will probably be advertising tie-ins. The problem is they have to split revenue with exhibitors, so, yeah, half a mill is probably around the profit point, which is still less than two and a half times cost, but the sticker is splitting revenue, not marketing costs.
And even if it grosses a little less than that it will do very well on DVD.
I told you that's not true because in order to recoup the cost on a big budget film they have to advertise the hell out of it. With a smaller film, The Transporter, for example, they can advertise on niche TV channels like Spike TV and SyFy where they hit their core market and where costs are lower. With a big release, like Spider-Man, they have to hit the major networks as well as the cable channels to ensure maximum audience turn-out. This costs far more in advertising budget. To which you said:
Why do they need to spend a lot of money marketing Spiderman?
John Carter, yeah, but Spiderman, when everybody including their dog knows about it?
This point doesn't matter because they are following the marketing trend that works, regardless of the property. The tactic is flood the market with ads and ensure maximum audience turn-out. Even with a well-known property. Which means that this statement is false:
The marketing costs shouldn't be any higher than an average studio release, and could even be less because it is a well known property and there will probably be advertising tie-ins.
If you look at the numbers I posted, it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a ton of money goes elsewhere before the studios turn a profit. That includes advertising costs.
Bottom line; Spider-Man must make at least $550-$600 million (a number I've said repeatedly) to even look fair for the studios. It needs to approach $1 billion to look good on the bottom line. It may pull this off. I don't know. But my numbers stand.
Your opinion doesn't.
@ Gandolph Even if those are "rough estimates", you'd have to round literally by the hundreds of millions to change the percentages. With a large release film the studios need to make at least 3X the budget to come out ahead at the box office. That's the
real reason that DVD/ancillary income matters. A film can make less than 3X its budget and still come out on top because of DVD/etc., however, at the box office 3X is the real goal for tent pole releases. Even with "rough estimates".