I just stumbled upon a post in the Spider-Man FFH thread saying: "$1 Billion is the new $500,000,000" So is this how a movie's success should be viewed & judged in general today? Michael Bay's Transformers Age of Extinction crossed $1 Billion as he laughed his way to the bank against his critics. And he gets some sort of a pass since the film made 1B. But Batman V. Superman made $873.6 million and that was 3 years ago. And the movie still got dissed just because "It's DC". I could understand Justice League though. It should gathered big since it's an Avengers type of film But nobody said bad about the first ANT-MAN film who earned just 520,000,000 in 2015? And Wonder Woman earned 821,000,000 and Aquaman crossed 1B and people aren't celebrating on a high like how "high" they are on Black Panther. Suicide Squad earned past 700,000,000 but still being dissed. Logan (while is a good film) just earned 619,000,000 2 years ago yet nobody is trashing the film like they trashed BvS & Suicide Squad. Just because "It's Marvel"? Is Hollywood and general public lost criteria on how they judge a film's success nowadays?
Blame Hollywood. They make it seem like a billion dollar flick is the way to go, while so many others fly under the radar and they're GOOD.
Well, when the films themselves often cost $250M nowadays, $500M in gross profit doesn't really mean much. It's all about the return on the investment. If you only spent $50-100M making the movie, then you'd be pretty satisfied with the half-billion take. But if you're spending top dollar, then including all the promotional campaigning and other secondary costs, then you're only breaking even, so it really wasn't worth the investment.
How much it makes is more importantly measured against how much it cost to produce - like Logan might only have made $617million but it’s budget is listed as only $97million. That represents a pretty good return on investment.
As long as said movie can make back its budget and then sum. I knew a sequel to ID4 was a bad idea. The first one was really just a popcorn movie. The other problem was they waited too long.
This pretty much sums up what I was going to contribute. Studios don't really seem all that concerned with total box office gross nowadays, it's more about return on investment. I believe the magic range is when a movie makes 200-300% of its budget, because that means it covered production, promotion, etc. But for heavily hyped movies, they need to make even more than that. Hard to believe that it was only about 30 years ago when people made a big deal about Jurassic Park costing 100 million to produce. And none of this explains how a mediocre movie like Avatar possibly made as much as it did. That still boggles my mind.
Oh, well I suppose they should put you in charge then. I don't think it was necessarily a bad idea. If they'd had a better movie it would've helped. And lets face it, they would've got a better turnout with Will Smith. Incidentally, it more than doubled it's budget, so not a total disaster financially. People put too much stock in whether a movie makes bank or not. I could understand if they were getting a cut, but it's often just a dick-measuring contest.
Eh, yes and no. The cast was capable, the storyline could've worked, but honestly, this is on Will Smith. Without him, they just couldn't craft a better script and had to wing it. He could've made them make it better. It's like making a Transformers movie with Optimus Prime being the focus of the film for a good portion of it but not having Optimus in it at all.
You're not accounting for inflation. Adjusting for inflation Jurassic Park and Jurassic World fallen kingdom had the same amount of money for their budget. Now OT, you have to account for a variety of factors. Big one is that the studio only gets 40-50% of the box office returns. From what I've heard it's 50% of return where the studio and distributor are part of the same corporate conglomerate. 40% where that's not the case. And it not fixed, that's why opening weekend is so important, they get a higher percentage of the box office early on. The theatre chain gets more later on. So 250% return on investment is the break even point for pretty much any movie. It's why Dredd was a commercial failure and never got a sequel. There's also a vocabulary problem people throw around the term "bombed" wrongly pretty much all the time. Under performing =/=bombing.
Studios, actors, directors, etc. being able to boast that their movie made a billion dollars absolutely IS a barometer of 'success' and popularity, but as at least some of us also realize, it doesn't necessarily equate to quality. And when I said "$1 Billion is the new $500 Million" a few days ago, I meant in the context that the days of $1B being an exclusive club are long gone. Obviously not every movie just makes that, but holy hell, it's become a FAR more attainable threshold to hit and definitely does not mean 'best of the best' anymore. Proof in the pudding: as of the end of this coming weekend, 42 movies will now sit in the $1 Billion+ club, 58 movies have now cleared $900 Million, and 209 movies will have hit and sailed past $500 Million or as everyone USED TO like to say to make it sound like the big deal that it USED TO be; 'half a billion dollars!". Now go look at the movies that are in there - alongside some amazing, great, classic, movies, there is a shocking amount of utter shit & trash. The new 'prestigious' clubs will be $1.5 Billion where only 8 movies currently reside, and of course $2 Billion, where until Star Wars: The Force Awakens showed up in 2015 and then Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame just in the last two years, only included exactly 2 entries. One of which sat there unrivaled for 22 years, and the other for 10 years. Now there are 5 in total. And only 2 of those passed $2.5 Billion. Point being, the 'brag' about movie X or Y hitting a billion dollars is going to lose a lot of steam, as it has already. To me it's more surprising now when these big comic/action/book franchise movies DON'T hit a billion.
Not yet, there are still plenty of successful movies that make under a billion. But we may be headed towards that, at least in terms of big blockbusters. It seems like these studios are pumping more and more money into blockbusters these days. I wouldn't mind more smaller, moderately-budgeted movies based on big properties. This is why something like Bumblebee ended up being solidly profitable despite not coming close to a billion. It didn't cost a lot to make. That also required it to focus more on story over flashy visual effects.
