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You're Dominic Greene?
Figures came from Sony emails uncovered in the Sony leaks. The $57 million refers to Sony's profit after it recovered its costs.
First, the studios don't keep all the box office. They split with theaters. In North America, studios keep 50 percent to 55 percent, depending on the movie and the terms negotiated. In China, the studios keep 25 percent. Also, studios pay taxes, etc.
//But not much of the profit has stayed with the studio, thanks to what Sony’s former movie chief described in an email leaked last year by hackers as “a one-sided deal with MGM.” Sony made just $57 million on “Skyfall,” according to another document released by the hackers—a small sum for a movie with such a huge box-office performance.
MGM made about $175 million while Danjaq, headed by producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, made $109 million, according to the same document.//
That and more here:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/pursuit-of-james-bond-film-rights-kicks-into-high-gear-1446156132
The producers made a shed load of cash for themselves, didn't they?
I don't know. All I know is those figures are from Sony, which should know more about who made how much than those of us here on this bulletin board.
1) If the budget is 250 mill then it is assumed they need 500 million until they start making profit? (general rule of thumb?) Firstly why double?? ?? Is this really accurate Surely marketing per film is not always double - I mean Skyfall felt like it had bigger marketing then SPECTRE. I am guessing this is a rough guesstimate?
2) Unlike a lot of films, product placement and sponsorship is a total different level when it comes to Bond - huge!
e.g. If they raked in 100 million from Omega, Bollinger etc with a 250 million budget then only 150 million was raised / spent by EON's own coffers. If so then profit begins at 300 million - no??
Either SF was that much of an outlier or the quality of the film or both. Historically the Bond films have played comparatively in the US and UK with the exception of the Dalton films.
1) Why is it double?, is because as a very rough average, the studio gets back half of the box office takings, the cinema chains keep the rest of the cash.
2) Yes, Bond films get a lot of money back through product placement, but that figure has already been taken into account in the final budget quoted at around $245 mil, as the budget for SP in reality was well over $300 mil. In fact it was so huge only Avatar was more expensive to make. :-O
SWTFA the new top dog film in the UK is currently at a massive £117.3 mil. :-O
How do you take into account the money the studio obtains from the VFX society who has a tax cut from the country where the VFX is done ?
Also I don't think Omega, Bollinger, etc.. gives money to the studio, the deal is rather that Omega is in the Bond movie, and Bond is in the Omega ads.
The best example IMO of how Sony was at the low end as far as receiving profit was concerned, is their Bond phone ad. In the leaks, we read they think Craig is too expensive for them (!), so they plan to use Wishaw instead. And now everyone can see they asked Harris.
Imagine the Omega fee is huge since they also have licence to knock out Bond editions
Don't forget we have the leaks...
For Skyfall : Heineken : $3m, Omega : $1m. Figures taken straight from the mail of a Sony executive.
Yes, ten times less than what you read in the media, because most of the "money" is in free ads actually IMO, not in cash.
Also note that in one of the leaked scripts of SP, Bond was at one moment in a Heineken truck in the PTS... In the final movie, Heineken is mostly here with the bottle in l'Americain, and it's not shown that prominently, compared to SF where we can see the logo in full view IIRC. So the deal may have been even less as far as cash is concerned.
This is all a rough guesstimate. Some estimates say you need 2.5 times to 3 times the production budget.
Also, re: production placement. Depends on the terms. In some cases, product placement is not direct cash payment. It's the company doing advertising promoting the movie -- money the studio does not have to spend.
Also, remember the box office figure ($1.1 billion in the case of Skyfall) doesn't all go to the studio. In the US and Canada, it's generally speaking 50 percent to 55 percent (specifics depending on the movie and negotiations between studio and theater chains). Elsewhere, it's 50 percent or less. In China, it's 25 percent.
Also the studio is, well, a studio, it doesn't have only one movie to sell. They can go and require theaters to have showings for other Sony movies in exchange for SPECTRE premieres and so on. How do you take that into account ? It's the land of financial creativity, as I wrote earlier, "Return of the Jedi" didn't make a profit according to the studio - so no money to pay for those actors with a share in the profits :)
Frankly, with the leaks available, making hypothesis without reading them is a bit weird. For the first time, one has access to the data at the core of the studio. Some don't want to read them for ethical reasosn, fine, but then much energy is lost if you're trying to guess "secret data".
You can read the Sony people wanting all their products to be customized in the movie so that the logos are enhanced, and EON worrying it will create more delay, IIRC. How can you invent that ?!
To make it clear how complex it is to judge how many dollars they'll earn, there's a mail exchange between two Sony executives where one wonders if product placement really does mean that less money is spent...
PS : I found the mail with the media commitment for Skyfall : Omega $15M, and Heineken $60M. But then as written above, "only" $1M and $3M in actual money to the producers.
They have to pay prints, ads, interests, fixed costs, variable pays for some talent ... Some of these costs are actually no more than "self-payment" for the studio and people involved in the movie.
I've randomly found on my hard drive an old movie studio insider study from I don't know remember where, comparing "Bond fandom" across various countries. They asked moviegoers who had just seen the same movie in 2008 (I don't know which one, it's a code). So it doesn't tell much about the country population, but it's a funny comparison between fans of this mysterious movie.
1) Are you a Bond fan ?
2) Have you seen Casino Royale ?
AU 88 % 56 %
FR 71% 52 %
DE 91% 65%
IT 73% 35%
MX 88% 55%
ES 85% 51%
UK 89% 74%
I wish I knew what the movie was. But it shows how difficult it is to predict box office in various countries. Italians went to see it even if they didn't see CR, while in DE it was something that attracted CR viewers etc...
QoS?
Any updates on SPECTRE? Looks like just failed to hit $200 mill in US which is a shame. Guess its run is more or less over now blu ray and downloads out
$879 mil worldwide, and at $199,605,015 in the US...ridiculously close to 200 as it leaves theatres (it will be in less than 100 theatres this weekend, and now the bluray is out). Sony didn't seem to give it any extra push in those last few weeks. How silly!
Logically, you round up to 200 mill--it is closer to 200 mill than 199--so it basically hit that target.
Personally, i find the North American gross very disappointing, when you look at the estimated admission figures, its the worse performing Bond in the Brosnan/Craig era.
Hopefully, Bond 25 will have a sparkle to it which will again attract the North American populous.