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That's not how business works.
BvS generated $800 odd million in revenue which is a great figure at face value; no one's denying that. However, context is everything.
BvS was made with every intention of grossing more than a $Billion. Much more. With such expectations WB decided to give it an obscenely massive budget. It's not about not breaking even, nor just breaking even, nor barely breaking even. Those aren't viable options. Couple that with what I said above in my earlier post about how studios make their money. If something's not profitable then it's not worth the effort and resources. What's worse is if the films themselves are also critically panned. It's just not good business sense. WB have a deluded sense of financial acumen.
Why do you think there are many TF movies? Those films rake in a $Billion a pop despite being trash on celluloid but also because there's nothing else like those movies. They walk away with good profit margins; and that's what it all comes down to. Profitability.
Yes, BvS was very profitable whichever way you slice it. And I know those Transformers films are huge in China now, less so the US.
Oy, people really need to understand that the money a film makes at the box office in total doesn't amount to how much they profited. Many people have to be paid, and studios don't get as much as you'd think they would from theatrical gains. WB got just 25% of China's takings alone, for example, and Suicide Squad didn't even get to screen there. so that's a valuable $100 plus million that film has already lost out on.
Batman v. Superman couldn't even scratch $900 million, and actually ended up with around $872 million in total box office gross, with WB spending $415 million on it with production costs and marketing added together. Their money earned from box office gains were projected to be about $395 million, and that was just a friendly estimate on the part of Forbes, who did the math. The Forbes estimate had the film making over twenty million more than it did, in fact, projecting a $895 million gross instead of the $872 it actually made at the end of its run. Subtracting the money WB will gain from disc releases of the film, money that isn't instant and will only add up throughout the years in profit, the film would barely, barely get them a little over $100 million in profit after all that spending. That's not good, and that's not "100's of millions of dollars."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robcain/2016/04/06/was-the-400-million-warner-bros-paid-for-batman-v-superman-a-good-investment/?utm_campaign=yahootix&partner=yahootix#488b6de07d67
MoS only made $43 million in profit (ouch) and who knows how low the profit of Suicide Squad will be. All that will depend on if it's as front loaded as BvS was, and if it is that's dangerous because there's no way it's making even the $800 plus million BvS did, and it's got to make at least that for WB execs to be happy. I predict yet another shake-up in management after this, especially since the cut of the film people aren't reacting strongly to was edited by WB and their partners, and did not represent Ayer's vision for the film.
MoS
Budget 225M
Gross 668M
Profit 43M
BvS
Budget 250M
Gross 872M
Profit (by your reckoning) 100M?
So BvS cost just 25M more, grossed over 200M more and yet only made an extra 57M in profit? What happened to the other 140+ million?
Most of these tent-poles have a marketing budget north of $100m (SP included). I'm not sure what BvS budget was, but given its visibility I would imagine its $150-200m+.
EDIT: Just checked, as suspected the 'official' figure for BVS is between $150-160m. If that's official you can chuck 10 - 20m on top.
But surely the same would apply to MoS? I mean, that film was the equivilant of the original Iron Man in terms of getting the ball rolling. Any movie that costs over 200M is going to have a huge marketing push behind it. That's par for the course.
Sorry I didn't read the figures correctly above. They're incorrect as far as I'm aware. I think WB made around $300m off the back of MOS (including Blu-Ray), slightly less thus far on BvS. So yes, they made hundreds of millions from these two movies.
Having said that, I enjoyed SS and BvS very much. They're not even close to being in the same league as Iron Man or Winter Soldier, and shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as Nolan's Bat Trilogy, but they were both reasonably entertaining.
If WB keeps at it, they could establish this universe as a credible and viable one. These early films are an investment in that 'world', and as such I can afford them some slack.
I cut them little slack because they threw a universe at us instead of building it up. They wanted to beat Marvel right away, and that was their biggest failing.
MoS was overwhelmingly mediocre at best. BvS was unforgivably regrettable. What should have been MoS 2 was a botched and hasty attempt at world building with DC's big 3 shoehorned in that failed to capitalise on such an epic novelty. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman together for the first time.
It's not even like it just came and went, the wow factor didn't even bother to turn up. Seriously, there's no investment in these characters due to the lack of care. "Let's take this iconic characters and do whatever because people will pay to see it anyway. Why waste time putting in any real effort? It's Superman and Batman; the last 2 Batman films alone made over $2 billion. We can't lose". Then of course reality happened. If the big 3 together can't reach $900 million, there's no way the addition of Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman are going to fair better.
This just makes Justice League a much harder sell and inevitably a more costly vehicle to promote. If one thought the marketing budget for BvS was insane, it's going to be equally ludicrous if not more for Justice League. At this point I'm not even that interested in the quality of the films as they've burned me 3 times already. I'm interested in the numbers and to see how long before Kevin Tsujihara gets his arse thrown out. In any case Suicide Squad are doing well in its first week BUT the real talk comes this second weekend.
Also rumor has it that the Rock might pull out of the "Shazam" movie.
You're not adding in marketing costs, which bump down the profits. And of the big money BvS made in China, WB only collected a mere 25% of it. The 100M estimate isn't mine, it was Forbes' recent one that was made as BvS was ending its theater run. They weren't far off with what the film finished with, as their prediction was $895M and it finished with $872M, but we'll not know just how much it's profited until the disc releases are viewed in the long term, as well as other merchandising, as that money takes time to collect (obviously).
My whole point here was that in comparison to other films in the genre, most prominently Marvel's films, money was better spent so that when the big bucks arrived in the box office, they got more profits, or, even when their budget was closer to BvS's production cost, they still gained much, much more at the BO to still gain more profit.
What WB/DC need is consistent strong numbers, films that have staying power instead of strong starts and weak legs. They also need to get control over how much money they pump into these movies, because as we've seen, reckless spending makes it that much harder for the films to profit for them. They're too effects heavy, and full of bad special effects at that. BvS is already considered one of the most expensive films of all time, and hopefully JL doesn't repeat this pattern of high risk, low reward.
@Brady, you're wasting your time. We've both spoon-fed how Hollywood accounting works but some people are happy to keep their head buried in the sand.
So would I. Especially with the expansive and impressive catalogue of Batman villains that are available to use. However, with Leto's Joker now introduced within the universe, it's hard not to see him being involved in the Batman solo film in some sort of way.
Those of us that have seen it have posted our thoughts in this thread. Go back a few pages.
Leto had a difficult act to follow in Heath, and his more 'camp' iteration was bound to fare poorly in comparison to the more psychologically deranged Nolan version. Nevertheless, quite a disappointment for me.
This pop singer never had a hope of reaching the same level of commitment to the role as Ledger. Leto is such a poser.
Darn shame to have wasted him like this. They really could have made the film without him and it wouldn't have hurt the final product all that much. They could have saved him for the Harley Quinn standalone.
Having said that, perhaps some of the lost scenes will make it into that film.
I didn't find him all that menacing tbh. I don't think that was what they were going for with this film. As I've mentioned earlier on the thread soon after I saw it, I found the tone of the film similar to Batman Forever (albeit slightly darker). More kiddie oriented Bat universe rather than adult.