Gatsby77

I really liked the first one, and am excited that Blunt's going to return, but good luck on getting on Cruise's schedule. This will likely have to wait until after Mission Impossible 8.

It officially hit my local $2 theater today! Looks like it will be on Redbox by Easter after all.

Nice "thought experiment" but you're still wrong on two counts. 1) I've already noted that the 2.5-3.0 theatrical break-even guideline doesn't apply to low-budget horror films. For exactly the reasons you mention. Jason Blum (you know, of Blumhouse Productions) noted a year ago that the theatrical break-even for his films is roughly $50 million worldwide, even though the vast majority of them have production budgets of under $10 million (some as low as $3 million). Because of P&A: it takes $10-$25 million to get even a $5 million horror movie into theaters. 2) Even with Halloween, the P&A expenses are more than cancelled out by the post-theatrical net studio profits. Ditto with *every other* example Bosco pulled from Deadline a page back. We all know Birds of Prey will lose Warner Bros. money. But, assuming it ends its run at $210 milliion worlwide, it'll only lose them $20-$25 million. Not horrible, and (importantly) likely not devastating to the box office of the forthcoming Suicide Squad sequel. Because you're not accounting for the $50-$100 million more in net profit even this film will make in post-theatrical.

To be fair, our boy Scott Mendelson (Forbes) notes that Bloodshot need only do $120 million or so *globally* to be a hit for Sony and warrant a sequel. Since it supposedly only cost $40-$45 million to make. (What? What's that I hear? 3.0x production budget??) And Vin Diesel's non-Fast & the Furious films have all done better overseas. So the hope is for a $40-$50 million domestic total & $110-$130 million worldwide. Even so, coming in 3rd or 4th on opening weekend isn't good optics from a Valiant Universe perspective.

Even three weeks ago Bloodshot was only tracking for a $10 million opening weekend. However, so were The Hunt and I Still Believe. It's entirely possible that Bloodshot comes in third (or fourth) this weekend behind those films and Onward's 2nd weekend.

Oh, Hey Kids! Look! Halloween is a *perfect* example that illustrates why P&A costs don't matter in back-of-the-hand theatrical profitability calculations! Notice that the revenue from "Worldwide Home Entertainment" ($32 million) and "Global TV Net ($87 million) sum to $119 milliion. Meanwhile, the total non-production expenses -- Worldwide P&A ($75.5 million), Video Costs ($11 million), Participations ($12 million), Residuals & Off-the-Tops ($11 million) and Interest ($2 million) sum to $111.5 million. Which means that all the non-production expenses (the bulk of which is P&A) are covered by post-theatrical revenue. They cancel each other out. What have we learned? You don't need to count P&A expense against a theatrical break-even calculation. It will be covered by post-theatrical revenue. This is why the industry shorthand for break-even is global theatrical revenue of 2.5-3.0x production budget, not 4.5x production budget, or "2.5-3.0x production budget plus P&A expenses."

Not for nothing, but I've been looking for NM copy of Magnus, Robot Fighter # 37 (1974) for five years now without success. Never mind CGC 9.8, I'd pay $200 for it in CGC 9.4.

We're in agreement here (as is the *entire* film analyst industry). But you bring up another nuance that most folks may not understand. Even outside of Disney's autocratic demands re. the Star Wars films, domestic studio revenue is always on a sliding scale. Typically, studios get 60-65% of the first two weeks' theatrical revenue, then just 35-40% thereafter (weeks 3-20). But since films make the majority of their revenue in the first two weeks overall, the studio take averages out to about 50-60% a film's overall domestic gross. Theaters usually run movies at break-even or a slight loss, with *all* of their profit coming from concession sales.

You're not wrong. The reason *every* expert uses a 2.5-3.0x production budget multiplier to worldwide theatrical gross ratio to estimate "break-even" is the other lines basically cancel each other out. Experts don't care about "P&A" expense because - with the exception of extremely low-budget or high-budget films, they're more than off-set by post-theatrical revenue. Low-budget exceptions: Blumhouse horror movies. The film itself may only cost $5-$10 million to produce, but the studio typically spends $25-$30 million on advertising. So theatrical break-even is usually $50-$60 million worldwide, as much as 10x "production cost." Note: 2017's "Get Out" is an even more egregious example of this, as Deadline's end-of-year chart shows it cost just $4.5 million to produce, but P&A came in at $77 million. But in this case, they ramped up the advertising after it was already a monster $90 million domestic hit, and it ultimately grossed more than $175 million worldwide. Here too, while the global gross revenue was $255 million, the estimated net studio profit from post-theatrical alone was $126 milliion, more than the entire estimated production cost, P&A, profit sharing, etc. In other words, per Deadline's analysis, Get Out would have been barely profitable *from post theatrical studio profits* alone, and the studio's net take from the theatrical release was pure profit. High-budget exceptions: The new Star Wars films. They may cost $200-$250 million to produce, but Disney will then spend as much as $150-$250 million *more* on advertising. Which is highly unusal, and throws theatrical break-even out-of-wack in the opposite direction, to like $850-$900 million worldwide. On the flipside, Disney has *far* more long-term revenue coming in from licensing of Star Wars films that make over-spending on the films themselves worth it. These include widely popular merchandise (including video games) and theme parks like Galaxy's End. They're also dealing with brand protection. The Force Awakens is reportedly the most expensive film of the new trilogy. This makes sense because: a) It had a longer development lead-time, and they developed a new set of characters, etc. from scratch. b) Much more than just the film itself was at stake -- the viability of another half-dozen (or more) films in the franchise were riding on Episode VII. It had to be a grand slam. Birds of Prey: In this particular case, Birds of Prey has an estimated theatrical break-even of $230 - $250 million. Which means it had a presumed $84.5 million production budget (actually $97 million before tax incentives). And $35-$50 million in P&A expenses. Let's be generous and say $75-$85 million in P&A (doubtful). Then true estimated "break-even" is ultimate revenue of $300-$325 million. But that only requires $230-$250 million from theatrical, the other $80-$100 million will come from post-theatrical -- the credit line items JayDog conveniently ignores in his ongoing jihad.

Bosco already dealt with Variety's *widely varying* break-even estimates for this film earlier in this thread as well. The true number is $230 million - $250 million global theatrical. (Funny how you bold the "$300 million globally" but ignore the next sentence, which states "closer to $250 million.)

But that's not what the studios consider when agreeing to greenlight and finance a film. A film's profitability calculation isn't measured by theatrical performance alone. You're ignoring 1/3 of the balance sheet. So...you're wrong. And this goes back to Bosco's example a page or so back. By your misguided "all-in" metric, literally 1/2 of the MCU films lost the studio money. That's. Not. True. Oh - and so did Batman Begins, etc.

No.You don't. And that's my point. You include all of the expenses (i.e., P&A) but then leave out all the post-theatrical profits (literally what Deadline lists as "global rental, global DVD & streaming sales, and global TV licensing"), deriding these as inconsequential "ancillaries" when they account for $50 - $200 million more gross revenue for each film - and *always* off-set the P&A costs.

Je-zus H. Christ. Stop spreading disinformation with your "all-in upfront costs" garbage. Was waiting for you to chime in with "it needs to gross 4.5x production budget theatrical" or such that you spewed in the Into the Spiderverse thread. 2.5x - 3.0x theatrical is sufficient, based on everything Bosco stated in his response. Because post-theatrical for this film will *easily* net the studios another $100 million. That's why P&A isn't included in the 2.5-3.0x production cost shorthand. Put another way, *every time* you list P&A costs that magically double the production cost of this film from $84.5 million to $185 million, make sure you *also* include the $200 million it will make in post-theatrical (i.e., global rental, global DVD & streaming sales, global TV licensing).

Let us not forget the $30,500 paid for the CGC 9.6 copy of this book back in 2009. Still (I believe) a record for a too-early purchase in the price-to-value category.

Huh. Then Sam Heughan's potentially playing a different villain, then? IMDB lists his character as "Jimmy Dalton" and Toby Kebbell as "Axe" (which was confirmed by trades last year). And the "Martin Axe" you show in the screenshot does indeed look like Kebbell. So it's likely we haven't actually seen Axe in his armor yet in the trailer?

Is that supposed to be Toby Kebell / Ax on the right? Because it doesn't look like him.

Not even close. He's also done Riddick (again), XXX (again), and The Last Witch Hunter. None of which exactly set the box office on fire. He also did some voice work (like Groot).

This. Also, I see no problem with requiring people to buy previous issues as a package. I don't know that I've bought a new comic off the shelf since 2012, but even back in the '90s my local stores did this: 1992 - To get Unity # 0 (a "free" comic), the dealer required you to buy at least four of the other 8 Unity books released that month. Because he himself received only 2 copies for each set of 8 Unity month one books he ordered. For Unity # 1 ($1.50 cover), you had to buy all 8 books that month, because he received only 1 for all 8 he ordered. You can also enforce per-customer limits on hot books. 1991 - My LCS switched Silver Surfer 50 & Ghost Rider 15 to "1 per customer" within a day of release when it became clear how quickly they were selling. 1992 - Youngblood # 1 - Limit 5 per customer (even after they ordered 300+ copies) 1993 - Rai # 0. LCS was so shorted on the book by Valiant that they were just able to cover their pre-orders and Valiant subscribers. None actually made it to the shelves at all. 2001 - Wolverine: Origin # 1 -- Limit 2 per customer from Day 1. 2008 - Captain America # 25 -- Limit 1 per customer (a bit harsh, since there were two covers -- subscribers received both covers).

That we're only getting a novelization of the film *now* shows how gun-shy and fearful Disney's become of doing *anything* that could potentially mess with its box office. Novelizations are usually released *before* the films, and any deviations from them are because they're written from earlier - not shooting - scripts. But in the end, it's the released film, not the novelization, that's considered canonical. Example: The first Star Wars film novelization came out in November 1976 - six months before the film's release. Ditto the Marvel Comics issue # 1. The novelizations of Batman (1989) and Batman and Robin (1997) both came out well before the respective releases as well. That we're seeing the novelization for this come out as the film is nearing the end of its screen run / when it's already out of theaters (March 17?? Really??) is embarrassing.

Who'd a'thunk Shazam was more popular than Harley Quinn?

Doubtful. Four new wide releases, including Warner Bros. next big film - The Way Back. Plus, Disney's Onward is tracking for $44 million.

Raising a glass to its last $1 million day...

And in the process, likely reduced the budget from $60 million to just $7 million.

$470K Thursday $74.68M Total (North America)

Japan announced yesterday that they're closing schools for a month, so I doubt most movie theaters will even be open in the short term. I lived in Tokyo for a year and worked for the Japanese government for awhile after that. Japan doesn't play. They'll lock stuff down China-style.