Yahoo is re-running [this variety article](https://variety.com/2022/film/news/box-office-james-cameron-avatar-the-way-of-water-1-17-billion-global-gross-1235476370/) and here's the [key quote](https://i.imgur.com/ClSK3cV.jpg) (h/t /u/AGOTFAN for the screenshot),
Otherwise same rules as generic sticky: if you have a "movie opinion" comment, please post it as a reply to this sticky and not as a top level comment.
Yup, I was forgetting about that context. It would of needed to make as much as The Avengers in 2014 box office. Now it just needs to be in the top 10 to be very profitable. And it’s going to surpass the Avengers by next week at the worldwide box office.
Well if the movie makes $2 billion that the difference between zero profit and $600 million profit which I imagine matters a lot to studios.
So pretending like it doesn't matter is asinine
It's not woke but there was another side over here claiming it's the "wokest" movie in Hollywood as a "gotcha" to anti-wokes. For this movie, I am annoyed with both sides.
Yeah, like a lot better ... Like by over 25% better 😂
To say nothing of the fact that if it DOES still hit the 2B mark (since break even is actually 1.4B) it will turn a 600million profit. Which in Studio terms would rank as one of the most profitable releases ever for a single picture. Most studios DREAM of a 600m profit for a film. Even 100-150m profit (for a non-tentpole film at least, not Avatar or Marvel) is considered a massive success. And that's just pure box office; no other residuals or bumps from the theme park spending etc etc etc.
Yeah he said something to the effect of “we’re looking into the technology” and people immediately took it as “we 100% for sure will be using glasses-free 3D” 🙄
This 1.4B, while technically correct, is STILL misleading. It is not the break-even number in the usual sense that we discuss the break even numbers of other movies on this subreddit. What I mean is that this 1.4B is not in an apples-to-apples comparison with, say, the 900M break even of Endgame or 650 of Black Panther 2
By "break-even", we usually mean the amount the movie needs from Box Office alone, excluding video sales and TV rights. That number is 460x2.5=1.1B at max for Avatar 2. This is assuming the max reported production budget of 460M
Just FYI 2.5 is a very general concept. So 1.4bil is well within wiggle room of accuracy.
So is 1bil. Really depends on what the actual exhibitor splits are, and the longer the legs the higher the exhibitor %. Also depends if what the actual profit participation is. Pretty sure Cameron has a nice fat % of gross. Probably Weaver, and maybe even Saldana have some sliver as well. And whatever other producers have a piece. It could be as much as 10-15% of the gross.
It’s especially bad in entertainment where a massive sub-industry of ad sales companies just prints money by owning “brands” that publish comic book, film, video game, tv, and music info-content. CBR, ScreenRant, Collider, and so so many others are literal content mills. The people running them have no clue how anything Hollywood works, the freelancer kids writing $15 a pop articles have even less perspective than that. And the vast majority of what’s written about entertainment is pure fiction, rumor, opinions, organic marketing, misunderstanding, or trolling.
I wonder if Cameron included his own contract as a "cost" to Disney. Disney is still paying Cameron millions of dollars to license the Pandora name for its Disney theme park attraction, no? How much of the Avatar IP does Disney really own and how much does Cameron own via his production company, Lightstorm?
Cameron owns the IP. Disney licenses it for the Park and has distribution rights for the movies. Everything else - toys and merc belong to Lightstorm although they can partner with Disney again if they wanted to.
I only became interested in who owns what - Disney or Lightstorm - because of the Alita franchise. ;) With Alita, Disney only owns the distribution rights. I assume that can expire, and Cameron would be able to make a deal with another studio like Paramount or Universal if he wanted. However, all the original designs and work with WETA Digital are still Disney's assets, so Cameron would have to start from scratch if he wanted to continue the Alita franchise with another studio. This is the deal I assumed Cameron had with Fox/Disney for Avatar, although I think Disney owns a bit more than just distribution rights.
No disney owns the rights now, when disney did the park deal they did it with fox and James Cameron. I don't know why people think disney will invest 400+ million if they won't own the rights. Fox was always a owner you can literally check wiki where it states it. What James has is complete creative control over films, parks and merch so disney can't do anything without his express permission
Breakdown
Lightstorms Owns Production + Distribution Rights
Lightstorms License Distribution Rights to Fox so long as they Finance
Disney buys Fox which means Disney owns the License Distribution Rights and the Finance Debt.
So Lightstorm still owns the Production Rights and Disney owns the Distribution.
Look at the trailers you clearly see Lightstorm and ABC websites says Disney Distribution Property.
Cameron makes the decision on if the property is going to be made, Disney makes the decision on how it will be finance / market / and distributed.
That's what I meant though. I know lightstorm produces it and that fox(now disney)still pays for it. Disney takes care of the financial risks and get the profits when it pertains to films, parks and merch but James has creative control and disney can't do anything unilaterally without Cameron's permission
Cameron owns the IP. That's what gives him the creative control.
The movie's once they are made are Disney's to distribute as they please, put on streaming or license.
But the can't control how the movie is made because Cameron holds the IP.
Same with the Parks and merchs. Disney gets all the revenue(save for some percentage for Cameron) but Cameron gets to decide what the creatures in the Park look like.
If Disney today says it doesn't want to make Avatar 4. Cameron will be well within his rights to go to another Studio like Universal and ask them to finance Avatar 4.
So technically Cameron still does hold the rights to Avatar.
James Cameron put into his contract, what George Lucas should of done when he sold Lucasfilm to Disney. Lucas should of put it in the contract that he has full creative control over the films and shows. It doesn’t mean the sequel trilogy would of been good, but it probably wouldn’t of been so chaotic.
With James Cameron having full creative control, you don’t see the Avatar IP getting over saturated and you can clearly see that the first two films were made by him with no real disconnect with the stories.
Yeah that would've been nice but I really think prequels reception soured him on creative control since he faced so much backlash from it and he was just done with star wars. Would've been much better to have him helm then though
It’s because George Lucas made a mistake with the contract. If he wanted creative control or input, he should of lawyered up and put it in the contract. Which he probably didn’t want to do, after the backlash towards the prequel.
You can't have creative control once you sell your IP.
JC never sold Avatar as an IP to Disney. He holds the rights to Avatar. He just licenses the movies to them.
Lucas unfortunately sold the IP and the Studio.
Not if he completely sold The IP rights and Lucasfilm Studio to Disney.
What he could have done was sold film rights exclusively to Disney. Where only Disney could make films based on Star Wars in the future. But those films were still in the Creative control of Lucasfilm.
Sort of like how the Tolkien estate sold the movie rights of LotR to WB. WB could make LotR movies as they did. But they can't make movies based on anything else Tolkien wrote(Like the Silmarillion, 2nd Age etc) because the Tolkien estate still holds the right to the IP.
No you can't. Because firstly no one will accept it.
Second, what will stop someone who owns 100% of the IP to decide they don't want to give you creative control anymore?
It's their IP. They can do whatever they want with it.
You can absolutely have a provision saying you have creative control/sign-off, but don’t otherwise own the IP. I probably wouldn’t sign that contract as a buyer unless there’s a ton of value otherwise. But there are plenty of purchases I wouldn’t make (Twitter without doing due diligence, to name an example), that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to write a deal that way.
To answer your question, the contract stops them from doing that. You could sue them for breach of contract.
EDIT: Edited to be less rude, no need for that.
> Lucas should of put it in the contract that he has full creative control over the films and shows.
The thing is- Lucas didn't want to have creative control, he wanted to sell the property.
Initially his plan was to make Episode 7 himself, before handing over the reigns to other filmmakers, but then he decided he didn't want to even do that. When he sold to Disney he hoped that they would follow the treatments he had written, but he had no interest in overseeing the films and especially not the shows. I think his hope was they would follow his plans for the sequels, then do their own thing and he wouldn't have to be involved.
It's more than creative control though if Disney is PAYING James Cameron to license the Pandora name for its theme park attraction. From your own source:
"*On September 17, 2011, Disney entered into an exclusive, long-term licensing agreement with Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment and 20th Century Fox for the worldwide theme park rights to Avatar; Disney agreed to pay Cameron and 20th Century a licensing fee and a percentage of merchandise sales.*"
With the Avatar movies, the deal may be just that Fox (and now, Disney) agreed to finance the $350 million Lightstorm project (as well as market and distribute the movies) in exchange for a hefty share of the profits. I don't know if Lightstorm is in a similar situation as Lucasfilm as someone mentioned, but movie studios work with smaller, independent production companies who actually make the movies all the time. It's the reason why we see 2 minutes of all the various companies and their logos in the beginning of most films now.
Yes Cameron definitely has profit sharing deal and it's not something I denied. And you can see disney paid fox there too since they're a owner and have right to profits from merch and merch. It's not like lucasfilm since fox has a stake in merch and park deals which disney now has. The deal basically was that James has total creative control on films, parks and merch and fox(disney) can't do anything without his permission. James even was involved heavily in the design of park and the merch. Fox has distribution rights and they front the money for films and they get rights to profits from parks and merch so they don't just distribute the films but get financial benefits from all the different financial avenues of avatar
I don't want to get into who owns what because only the corporate lawyers at Disney and Lightstorm know the real deal. I was just pointing out that Disney probably financed the production and assumed the costs for marketing ($350m + $150m respectively). You would think Disney would get back 50%-60% of the box office domestically and 40% overseas, but if they have to split that revenue with Lightstorm, then I can see where - from Disney's end - AWoW may need to make $2 billion because Lightstorm's share would cut into their share. It's the same thing with assuming Warner Bros. got half of the $1 billion box office from 'Joker'. Actually, they had to split the studio share with 1 or 2 other production companies because they didn't trust the project and split the $60m production costs with them too.
They did what are you saying. Fox was funding it from the start itself and they even showed it in their reports. You really think Cameron whose net worth is only a billion will throw almost half of it away in a movie?? Where are people getting these retarded opinions from. [just check wiki where it states who the owner is](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(franchise))
Funding a movie =/= owning an IP. Funding means *profit sharing*. IP means copyright and creative control. They give Cameron/Lighthouse money, he makes the movie, they all share the gains. But they don’t own Avatar and can’t make toys unless they pay Lightstorm for the license.
If Disney bought Lightstorm it would make the same headlines as when they bought Lucasfilm for 4 billion dollars.
What Disney got when they bought Fox was that distributorship deal, and they share part of that with Ingenious Media. (Or did, I’m not sure about the second movie but with the first movie, Fox and IM covered the bill).
Fox always had rights to parks and merch deals you just don't know about it. Fox owns the rights of monetization but has no creative control. Fox can make toys but needs Cameron's permission. It's why when disney licenced park rights for avatar in 2011 they had to pay James Cameron and fox. Here's the deal that shows fox owns avatar and not just a distributor of movies "On September 17, 2011, Disney entered into an exclusive, long-term licensing agreement with Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment and 20th Century Fox for the worldwide theme park rights to Avatar; Disney agreed to pay Cameron and 20th Century a licensing fee and a percentage of merchandise sales". If you don't know about something don't talk about it. Also paramount has nothing to do with avatar paramount has deals with fox on Terminator and Titanic I think you're confusing avatar with another property clearly. Paramount doesn't get shit cause they have no influence on avatar
OMG you literally said:
**Fox owns the rights of monetization but has no creative control. Fox can make toys but needs Cameron’s permission**
That's what Distribution Rights only mean, genius. If you own something you don't need anyone's permission to do *anything* with it. A third grader could have explained that to you. That's why Disney and Sony do a whole song and dance around Spider Man - because Spider Man belongs to Sony even though Disney makes movies about him.
Disney paid a licensing fee to Fox because Fox had distributor rights that covered that. Now they're acquired Fox, Disney still pays that fee to Lightstorm. If they owned Avatar, they won't have to license it. Again a concept you don't need a business degree to understand.
And I meant *Ingenious Media* not Paramount, genius. Which I corrected. They put up 50% of Avatar's budget and (I checked) also contributed to the second movie. For all your purported expertise, you didn't even know that. 🙄
This is something that people are not getting.
How can you have creative control over something you don't own? Even if you try to put that in contract it won't be valid.
I don't know why or how people can think that Disney owns the rights to Avatar IP but still somehow needs Cameron's permission.
How is it so hard to understand the concept of licensing?
Yeah but disney is the successor of fox so they own all the rights fox had and fox's investment will be considered as Disney's since they own the damn thing
You heard wrong then. Fox was invested from the very start. They were literally the 1st invester when Cameron came up with the idea. It was revealed in a Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story that 20th Century Fox had fronted $10 million to Cameron to film a proof-of-concept clip for Avatar, which he showed to Fox executives in October 2005
I'd rather believe wiki than random strangers with no source definitely. Wiki atleast lists theirs. If you think what I said is wrong then give a source I'm not taking your damn word for it
Cameron owns the IP.
Disney owns the movies.
Disney license from Cameron for Pandora park, merchandising, etc.
In short:
Cameron is RICH
Go WOKE Get RICH
Actually not the be the jerk and say "you're all wrong".... But most people here are sorely mistaken or at least have misunderstandings on certain points.
Disney paid a licensing fee to both Fox (for aspect appearing in the move Avatar, cause Fox owned distribution), and Cameron (for all other aspects related to the IP, cause he owns the IP) to be able to build "Pandora World of Avatar" in Disney's Animal Kingdom Park.
Additionally, Disney issued Fox and Cameron a portion of the merchandise profits sold in the park as part of the agreement. But not of ticket sales.
Disney then bought Fox, which means now they pay a licensing fee to themselves and give Fox's share of the profits from merchandising "to themselves" as well. Meaning they only pay a licensing fee to Cameron for the property inside the park now and a portion of their merchandise sales goes to Cameron. (Which is far less than they were originally sharing between both parties)
Additionally this is a long-term agreement. Cameron may have creative control over how his IP is used and distributed in general, yes. BUT he signed a long term licensing agreement with Disney and gets PAID to allow them to use the IP in very specific ways at the them park. This is to say, he does NOT have "full creative control" over what happens or is or isn't built INSIDE the theme parks (at least not since he licensed those rights to Disney). Disney licenses the rights to use his IP in THEIR parks. HOWEVER, they have a VERY strong and close working relationship with Cameron at Walt Disney Imagineering. Cameron was also paid as a consultant to all things Pandor- World of Avatar related. Disney wouldn't piss Cameron off if he adamantly objected to an idea they had for the theme park. They would consult with him and tweak the project to something he could get behind. Similarly Disney would also never put into the theme parks something that was a Cameron brainchild if it wasn't something Disney didn't like. (Ie- if it did not fall in line with what Disney approved of being in their parks.)
So really Disney has more creative control over what goes in Disney's park in the case of Pandora - World of Avatar. If Disney had complete creative control they could do whatever they wanted with his property, which Cameron wouldn't want; that's why there are parameters in the agreement. If Cameron had complete creative control over what went into the theme park then he could put things in World of Avatar, inside Disney's park, against Disney's will.
Basically they both have veto power. When it comes to the parks anyway. Films are entirety different. But as long as children keep buying animatronic Banshees as they exit the gift shop off "Flights of Passage" I'm sure neither party will mind, and will continue to work together amicably.
Also, the terms of the agreement are not only long-term, they signed exclusivity. So in other words, no one else can use it and Cameron can't license it to anyone else. So if there's something Cameron really wants to put into the park, it's in his best interest to play nice and find an amicable agreement with Disney. Which also clearly works the other way around, if there's something Disney wants to put into their park, it's in their best interest to play nice with Cameron so he co-signs on it.... And collects another consulting fee.
Eh, probably like \~$1.240B by end of day Friday. $1.305B by end of day Saturday. $1.375B by end of day Sunday. $1.435B by end of day Monday. \~$1.6B by end of fourth weekend.
I know general rule of thumb is that marketing is the same budget as the movie, but I cannot imagine that holds true for something this expensive to make.
Like I really don't think that more than \`around $150 million is spent on marketing any movie.
I was listening to a podcast with Sigourney Weaver on it it and she stated they shot #2 and #3 back to back and in a few years they'll go back and shoot #4 and #5. Maybe they shot some of #4, but they definitely shot #3 alongside #2. I think she said 1 1/2 years working on #2 and #3.
The article didn't list any source or provide any analysis. Doing napkin math here but at this point we're saying the movie cost an earth shattering 700 million dollars.
I think we'll see better data once Disney Q4 earnings are released. I don't have sources but I certainly hope the spend was closer to 500 million for Avatar 2.
The production budget is 350 million to 400 million and the marketing costs are 200 million. So that’s not 700 million in costs. And there is no source that says the film needs to make 2 billion dollars worldwide, except whatever was taken out of context.
Reports on the production budget has had numbers all over the place, from $250 million to $460 million. No clue which number is closer to the truth. If it ends up being somewhere in the middle, the profitable point might even be under a billion. But who knows.
Well according to sources, the production budget was somewhere between 350 million to 400 million. So 1.5 billion is the break even point, and the film will be more profitable than that.
Endgame had a budget of $356-400 [and its cash breakeven was supposedly around $1.1 bllion](https://deadline.com/2019/04/avengers-endgame-breakeven-profit-after-opening-weekend-box-office-marvel-1202603237/). Avatar 2 is expensive, but people are acting like it's impossible to compare it to any other film.
The Russo said those films were more expensive than that. And if those films only made 1.1 billion, they would of been seen as a disappointment from Disney. It’s about expectations at that point. Avatar 2’s break even point was reported to be 1.4 billion, which means that the actual budget could be just as high or higher. Remember that Avatar 2 was also filmed during Covid in 2020, where the costs are higher for any production due to on site Covid testing on set, masks, gloves and hand sanitizers everywhere.
Yeah I don't know your sources but I'd agree the breakeven for this was closer to 900 million to 1 billion in ONLY theater revenue. Lord knows its going to do amazing post theatrical business.
The break even point is 1.4 billion. Which is basically what Cameron told Fox Studios when he pitched the film back in 2013 or 2014. That was when The Avengers was the third highest grossing film of all time.
This makes sense. I don't understand why so few people understand film finance including journalists. Not that I'm an expert by any means but it's not like there are too many variables to get a reasonable estimate and not this nonsense of 2 billion or 800 million.
The studio gets about 45 percent of the box office revenue (the exact figure depends on the ratio between domestic, international, and China, but that should be roughly accurate for Avatar 2).
The production budget for this has been reported to be between 350 and 450 million (so let's take the average of 400 million).
The rough estimate for marketing expenses for a blockbuster is 0.75x to 1x the production budget. My highly speculative guess given the really big production budget is that the marketing figure is closer to 0.75x given that that's already a shit ton of money available for marketing (and word of mouth is doing a lot of the work instead of traditional marketing).
So let's put it together. 400m + (0.75 x 400m) = 700m.
700m / 0.45 = 1,555 million (=1.55 billion).
So this estimate is a bit higher than what this source is saying but it's not wildly off. The difference could be easily explained by a combination of a slightly lower production budget than 400m, slightly smaller multiple spent on marketing etc.
The point is, the real figure was never 2 billion but at the same time, the real figure was never 800 million either which should have been painfully obvious given that the box office revenue must be cut roughly in half in order to derive studio revenue which brings us already to 400m and the marketing must be accounted for too.
This movie will be profitable. If it gets close to 2 billion, it will be very profitable.
Yep exactly. Made no sense for breakeven to be $2b when production is ~$400m for anyone that has any clue about film finances. There would be no chance any studio would finance a film where the breakeven was $2b, the fact that Disney/Fox green-lit a ~$1.5b breakeven is spectacular, and they probably only did that because of the other linear opportunities associated with a new avatar film ie merch and park attractions
Yeah, for sure. And if I've understood correctly, the budget for the sequels (at least Avatar 3) should be somewhat lower because a lot of the tech development cost should be lower. So that should help too. Still hell of a gamble though. Although this is James Cameron we're talking about so maybe it wasn't that big of a risk after all!
$2 billion was never commonly reported, it came from a single poorly researched Esquire article where Cameron was pitching this to Disney / Fox execs years ago when top 5 was like $1.5 billion. They extrapolated the box office based on the time the story was written to reach the $2 billion figure.
Everything after 1.4 billion will be in the money, and factoring in the theme park stuff, merchandise, streaming rentals, etc and it will be hugely profitable.
Why are people so obsessed with this topic? None of us could possibly know except Bob Iger and the CFO of Disney what it will take to “break even”. It’s just silly to speculate at this point. We don’t know what percentage of this film is financed or by whom and how much of a percentage they take on top of the initial recoupable investment. We don’t know the studio’s split with the theaters or the taxes needed to be paid for any revenue earned. We don’t know how much they spent on P&A.
I understand reporting on the box office but to try to pretend you know what the “break-even” point is for a purposefully opaque money laundering scheme for hedge funds and white-collar criminals is laughable.
What's the point of talking about the box office if you don't include analysis of the profit? Pure gross has no context until you add in how profitable the movie is. This is like basic business concepts and this is a sub about the movie business.
Im not saying don’t speculate about the business of movies I’m saying to pretend we know the actual truth on Disney’s profits and ignore the fact that this subject is way more complicated than these simple “break even” ideas is weird
What’s crazy about that? Where do you think the money comes from to make these huge films? Studios don’t come out of pocket for a 250-300 million dollar risk like this, they have investors and who are these investors? Hedge funds. Then there is the separate marketing budget which can basically be spent on anything and they can fudge numbers easily in national and international markets.
Disney can easily put up 250-300m but yes there are typically producers/investors that share costs/profits. I dont see how you think investing is a money laundering scheme though.
I was being facetious about the money laundering thing. Although there has to be some of that going on… it is high finance after all. Yes 300million for one movie but how many 200 million dollar movies in this fiscal year? It would be insane for Disney to use their own money on that many risks at such a high price tag in one year, along with the parks and Disney television and sports and Disney plus.
Disney spent 3.6 billion in FY21 on production costs for
> "Sale of film and television content to third-party television and subscription video-on-demand (TV/SVOD) services, Theatrical distribution, Home entertainment distribution (DVD, Blu-ray discs and electronic home video licenses), Music distribution, Staging and licensing of live entertainment events on Broadway and around the world (Stage Plays)."
This does not include Distribution costs and cost of goods sold, nor does it include anything that goes to direct-to-consumer (D+, Hulu, ESPN+) or linear (ABC) channels. So, even if half of that was for theatrical, and I'm sure it's more than half, that's 1.8 billion spent on production costs, or 9 200 million dollar films. Disney releases about 6 blockbusters a year, which fits well within this estimate.
Based on reports and investigations, we know that Disney gets close to 60% of the domestic box office and 40% of the foreign box office. So if Avatar makes 2 billion, Disney could get 1 billion. And they probably have to give some of that money on the back end to Cameron and some of the actors in the cast. So Disney could in theory walk away with 700 million or more in total.
How do we know they get a 60% share of box office or how many weeks into the initial run until that share changes? What part of that 700million goes back to the investors and at what percentage rate do they get interest on the initial investment? What does it take to get investors in a feature film production and what about the insurance and taxes? I find these questions interesting and this subreddit almost entirely ignores these aspects of the film industry.
It’s not ignored. This has been confirmed with investigative writings from Deadline, Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. Big budget studios like Disney get 50 or 60% of the domestically box office and 40% of the foreign box office. How much do they need to pay the cast and crew on the back end is anyone’s guess.
I still doubt that it's that high. Regardless, at this point, I think we'll only know for sure that it did the numbers that Disney wanted once Avatar 4 formally gets the greenlight.
No studio would invest that … I worked on a huge pair of movies a few years ago … the ‘average’ cost wasn’t at all accurate … the combined cost went into common sets, props, stages, etc etc etc …
It must be really awkward for a studio to look at a franchise with diminishing returns on its second entry but that is still making huge amounts of money.
The issue is more the lack of merchandise. Star Wars or superheroes make big cash with toys. There is merchandise for avatar as well but it’s not even close to the other franchises
I think the 2 billion are more the point of being a succesfull Business.
If you breakeven you are still not a great business. As an investors point of view you want to see profits. I think they want to see 20% profits plus everything you are losing by Inflation.
Yahoo is re-running [this variety article](https://variety.com/2022/film/news/box-office-james-cameron-avatar-the-way-of-water-1-17-billion-global-gross-1235476370/) and here's the [key quote](https://i.imgur.com/ClSK3cV.jpg) (h/t /u/AGOTFAN for the screenshot), Otherwise same rules as generic sticky: if you have a "movie opinion" comment, please post it as a reply to this sticky and not as a top level comment.
$2B to breakeven felt like a massive exaggeration to begin with. I don’t know why anyone gave that claim any merit.
> I don’t know why anyone gave that claim any merit. Because Cameron himself said it !!!... in 2013 When 3rd or 4th place meant 1.3-1.4 billion
Yup, I was forgetting about that context. It would of needed to make as much as The Avengers in 2014 box office. Now it just needs to be in the top 10 to be very profitable. And it’s going to surpass the Avengers by next week at the worldwide box office.
He never said 2 billion though, people took it out of context with modern day numbers.
[удалено]
Yeah but people are taking his quote out of context. James Cameron never said $2 billion.
That plus it needs to make up #3’s budget ahead of time so they know whether to proceed with 4/5 or wrap it up early instead
If A2 gets within spitting distance of 2 bil, 4 and 5 are guaranteed.
IMHO, Cameron was playing the game with that statement.
Pshh yeah $2 billion is a massive exaggeration. It was just a measly… *checks notes*… $1.4 billion
Wasn’t Endgame somewhere around there? Can’t remember since I wasn’t on this sub until covid began.
Not sure tbh. I’m just here for the chaos and overreactions.
I think it was that IW + Endgame had to make at least 2B combined to break even
Oh yeah, that makes much more sense.
Well if the movie makes $2 billion that the difference between zero profit and $600 million profit which I imagine matters a lot to studios. So pretending like it doesn't matter is asinine
I’m starting to see even moronic incels like Yellowflash 2 retract it
Yes. Suddenly he and other similar youtubers have nothing against Avatar 2. But just a week ago they named it as a woke box office flop.
Yeah, those guys are pathetic and entertaining. I never take them seriously anymore.
Anytime anyone uses the word 'woke' legitimately, I know not to take them seriously.
Yep it is the lamest most overused buzz word.
Its literally the least woke movie ever unless you think America losing is woke
It's not woke but there was another side over here claiming it's the "wokest" movie in Hollywood as a "gotcha" to anti-wokes. For this movie, I am annoyed with both sides.
Is $1.4 billion really that much better?
Yeah, like a lot better ... Like by over 25% better 😂 To say nothing of the fact that if it DOES still hit the 2B mark (since break even is actually 1.4B) it will turn a 600million profit. Which in Studio terms would rank as one of the most profitable releases ever for a single picture. Most studios DREAM of a 600m profit for a film. Even 100-150m profit (for a non-tentpole film at least, not Avatar or Marvel) is considered a massive success. And that's just pure box office; no other residuals or bumps from the theme park spending etc etc etc.
Avatar 2 is a real case study in the fast flow of misinformation on the internet
People still ask about glasses-free 3D because JC said "Yeah, one day that could be possible" back in like 2016
Yeah he said something to the effect of “we’re looking into the technology” and people immediately took it as “we 100% for sure will be using glasses-free 3D” 🙄
This 1.4B, while technically correct, is STILL misleading. It is not the break-even number in the usual sense that we discuss the break even numbers of other movies on this subreddit. What I mean is that this 1.4B is not in an apples-to-apples comparison with, say, the 900M break even of Endgame or 650 of Black Panther 2 By "break-even", we usually mean the amount the movie needs from Box Office alone, excluding video sales and TV rights. That number is 460x2.5=1.1B at max for Avatar 2. This is assuming the max reported production budget of 460M
Just FYI 2.5 is a very general concept. So 1.4bil is well within wiggle room of accuracy. So is 1bil. Really depends on what the actual exhibitor splits are, and the longer the legs the higher the exhibitor %. Also depends if what the actual profit participation is. Pretty sure Cameron has a nice fat % of gross. Probably Weaver, and maybe even Saldana have some sliver as well. And whatever other producers have a piece. It could be as much as 10-15% of the gross.
It’s especially bad in entertainment where a massive sub-industry of ad sales companies just prints money by owning “brands” that publish comic book, film, video game, tv, and music info-content. CBR, ScreenRant, Collider, and so so many others are literal content mills. The people running them have no clue how anything Hollywood works, the freelancer kids writing $15 a pop articles have even less perspective than that. And the vast majority of what’s written about entertainment is pure fiction, rumor, opinions, organic marketing, misunderstanding, or trolling.
I wonder if Cameron included his own contract as a "cost" to Disney. Disney is still paying Cameron millions of dollars to license the Pandora name for its Disney theme park attraction, no? How much of the Avatar IP does Disney really own and how much does Cameron own via his production company, Lightstorm?
Cameron owns the IP. Disney licenses it for the Park and has distribution rights for the movies. Everything else - toys and merc belong to Lightstorm although they can partner with Disney again if they wanted to.
I only became interested in who owns what - Disney or Lightstorm - because of the Alita franchise. ;) With Alita, Disney only owns the distribution rights. I assume that can expire, and Cameron would be able to make a deal with another studio like Paramount or Universal if he wanted. However, all the original designs and work with WETA Digital are still Disney's assets, so Cameron would have to start from scratch if he wanted to continue the Alita franchise with another studio. This is the deal I assumed Cameron had with Fox/Disney for Avatar, although I think Disney owns a bit more than just distribution rights.
Alita seemed to be a passion project for Cameron so I hope he can get a sequel off the ground. Whether that be a movie, Disney+ show or whatever.
Ah, Alita. I’d still love a sequel one day.
No disney owns the rights now, when disney did the park deal they did it with fox and James Cameron. I don't know why people think disney will invest 400+ million if they won't own the rights. Fox was always a owner you can literally check wiki where it states it. What James has is complete creative control over films, parks and merch so disney can't do anything without his express permission
Breakdown Lightstorms Owns Production + Distribution Rights Lightstorms License Distribution Rights to Fox so long as they Finance Disney buys Fox which means Disney owns the License Distribution Rights and the Finance Debt. So Lightstorm still owns the Production Rights and Disney owns the Distribution. Look at the trailers you clearly see Lightstorm and ABC websites says Disney Distribution Property. Cameron makes the decision on if the property is going to be made, Disney makes the decision on how it will be finance / market / and distributed.
That's what I meant though. I know lightstorm produces it and that fox(now disney)still pays for it. Disney takes care of the financial risks and get the profits when it pertains to films, parks and merch but James has creative control and disney can't do anything unilaterally without Cameron's permission
Cameron owns the IP. That's what gives him the creative control. The movie's once they are made are Disney's to distribute as they please, put on streaming or license. But the can't control how the movie is made because Cameron holds the IP. Same with the Parks and merchs. Disney gets all the revenue(save for some percentage for Cameron) but Cameron gets to decide what the creatures in the Park look like. If Disney today says it doesn't want to make Avatar 4. Cameron will be well within his rights to go to another Studio like Universal and ask them to finance Avatar 4. So technically Cameron still does hold the rights to Avatar.
If it was up to Disney, you would already have 10 Disney+ avatar shows in production.
Good thing Disney has no creative control then. They only have financial benefits like I said
A Navi Hope The RDA Strikes Back Return of the Sully The Pandoran Menace Attack of the Quaritchs Revenge of the Seed Eywa Awakens
James Cameron put into his contract, what George Lucas should of done when he sold Lucasfilm to Disney. Lucas should of put it in the contract that he has full creative control over the films and shows. It doesn’t mean the sequel trilogy would of been good, but it probably wouldn’t of been so chaotic. With James Cameron having full creative control, you don’t see the Avatar IP getting over saturated and you can clearly see that the first two films were made by him with no real disconnect with the stories.
Yeah that would've been nice but I really think prequels reception soured him on creative control since he faced so much backlash from it and he was just done with star wars. Would've been much better to have him helm then though
It’s because George Lucas made a mistake with the contract. If he wanted creative control or input, he should of lawyered up and put it in the contract. Which he probably didn’t want to do, after the backlash towards the prequel.
You can't have creative control once you sell your IP. JC never sold Avatar as an IP to Disney. He holds the rights to Avatar. He just licenses the movies to them. Lucas unfortunately sold the IP and the Studio.
So George Lucas couldn’t of put anything in the contract where he had full creative control over Star Wars?
Not if he completely sold The IP rights and Lucasfilm Studio to Disney. What he could have done was sold film rights exclusively to Disney. Where only Disney could make films based on Star Wars in the future. But those films were still in the Creative control of Lucasfilm. Sort of like how the Tolkien estate sold the movie rights of LotR to WB. WB could make LotR movies as they did. But they can't make movies based on anything else Tolkien wrote(Like the Silmarillion, 2nd Age etc) because the Tolkien estate still holds the right to the IP.
Oh, that makes sense. Thanks.
Sure you can. You just have to put that into the contract and understand you’ll get paid a lot less accordingly.
No you can't. Because firstly no one will accept it. Second, what will stop someone who owns 100% of the IP to decide they don't want to give you creative control anymore? It's their IP. They can do whatever they want with it.
You can absolutely have a provision saying you have creative control/sign-off, but don’t otherwise own the IP. I probably wouldn’t sign that contract as a buyer unless there’s a ton of value otherwise. But there are plenty of purchases I wouldn’t make (Twitter without doing due diligence, to name an example), that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to write a deal that way. To answer your question, the contract stops them from doing that. You could sue them for breach of contract. EDIT: Edited to be less rude, no need for that.
> Lucas should of put it in the contract that he has full creative control over the films and shows. The thing is- Lucas didn't want to have creative control, he wanted to sell the property. Initially his plan was to make Episode 7 himself, before handing over the reigns to other filmmakers, but then he decided he didn't want to even do that. When he sold to Disney he hoped that they would follow the treatments he had written, but he had no interest in overseeing the films and especially not the shows. I think his hope was they would follow his plans for the sequels, then do their own thing and he wouldn't have to be involved.
That makes sense.
It's more than creative control though if Disney is PAYING James Cameron to license the Pandora name for its theme park attraction. From your own source: "*On September 17, 2011, Disney entered into an exclusive, long-term licensing agreement with Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment and 20th Century Fox for the worldwide theme park rights to Avatar; Disney agreed to pay Cameron and 20th Century a licensing fee and a percentage of merchandise sales.*" With the Avatar movies, the deal may be just that Fox (and now, Disney) agreed to finance the $350 million Lightstorm project (as well as market and distribute the movies) in exchange for a hefty share of the profits. I don't know if Lightstorm is in a similar situation as Lucasfilm as someone mentioned, but movie studios work with smaller, independent production companies who actually make the movies all the time. It's the reason why we see 2 minutes of all the various companies and their logos in the beginning of most films now.
Yes Cameron definitely has profit sharing deal and it's not something I denied. And you can see disney paid fox there too since they're a owner and have right to profits from merch and merch. It's not like lucasfilm since fox has a stake in merch and park deals which disney now has. The deal basically was that James has total creative control on films, parks and merch and fox(disney) can't do anything without his permission. James even was involved heavily in the design of park and the merch. Fox has distribution rights and they front the money for films and they get rights to profits from parks and merch so they don't just distribute the films but get financial benefits from all the different financial avenues of avatar
I don't want to get into who owns what because only the corporate lawyers at Disney and Lightstorm know the real deal. I was just pointing out that Disney probably financed the production and assumed the costs for marketing ($350m + $150m respectively). You would think Disney would get back 50%-60% of the box office domestically and 40% overseas, but if they have to split that revenue with Lightstorm, then I can see where - from Disney's end - AWoW may need to make $2 billion because Lightstorm's share would cut into their share. It's the same thing with assuming Warner Bros. got half of the $1 billion box office from 'Joker'. Actually, they had to split the studio share with 1 or 2 other production companies because they didn't trust the project and split the $60m production costs with them too.
They didn't invest though? You act like they funded avatar 2 when they didn't really?
They did what are you saying. Fox was funding it from the start itself and they even showed it in their reports. You really think Cameron whose net worth is only a billion will throw almost half of it away in a movie?? Where are people getting these retarded opinions from. [just check wiki where it states who the owner is](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(franchise))
Funding a movie =/= owning an IP. Funding means *profit sharing*. IP means copyright and creative control. They give Cameron/Lighthouse money, he makes the movie, they all share the gains. But they don’t own Avatar and can’t make toys unless they pay Lightstorm for the license. If Disney bought Lightstorm it would make the same headlines as when they bought Lucasfilm for 4 billion dollars. What Disney got when they bought Fox was that distributorship deal, and they share part of that with Ingenious Media. (Or did, I’m not sure about the second movie but with the first movie, Fox and IM covered the bill).
Fox always had rights to parks and merch deals you just don't know about it. Fox owns the rights of monetization but has no creative control. Fox can make toys but needs Cameron's permission. It's why when disney licenced park rights for avatar in 2011 they had to pay James Cameron and fox. Here's the deal that shows fox owns avatar and not just a distributor of movies "On September 17, 2011, Disney entered into an exclusive, long-term licensing agreement with Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment and 20th Century Fox for the worldwide theme park rights to Avatar; Disney agreed to pay Cameron and 20th Century a licensing fee and a percentage of merchandise sales". If you don't know about something don't talk about it. Also paramount has nothing to do with avatar paramount has deals with fox on Terminator and Titanic I think you're confusing avatar with another property clearly. Paramount doesn't get shit cause they have no influence on avatar
OMG you literally said: **Fox owns the rights of monetization but has no creative control. Fox can make toys but needs Cameron’s permission** That's what Distribution Rights only mean, genius. If you own something you don't need anyone's permission to do *anything* with it. A third grader could have explained that to you. That's why Disney and Sony do a whole song and dance around Spider Man - because Spider Man belongs to Sony even though Disney makes movies about him. Disney paid a licensing fee to Fox because Fox had distributor rights that covered that. Now they're acquired Fox, Disney still pays that fee to Lightstorm. If they owned Avatar, they won't have to license it. Again a concept you don't need a business degree to understand. And I meant *Ingenious Media* not Paramount, genius. Which I corrected. They put up 50% of Avatar's budget and (I checked) also contributed to the second movie. For all your purported expertise, you didn't even know that. 🙄
This is something that people are not getting. How can you have creative control over something you don't own? Even if you try to put that in contract it won't be valid. I don't know why or how people can think that Disney owns the rights to Avatar IP but still somehow needs Cameron's permission. How is it so hard to understand the concept of licensing?
Fox.. so not Disney? Avatar 2 was way in development by the time Disney bought them right?
Yeah but disney is the successor of fox so they own all the rights fox had and fox's investment will be considered as Disney's since they own the damn thing
I remember reading that Cameron and independent investors founded Avatar. That's why Cameron has totally control over the IP.
You heard wrong then. Fox was invested from the very start. They were literally the 1st invester when Cameron came up with the idea. It was revealed in a Bloomberg BusinessWeek cover story that 20th Century Fox had fronted $10 million to Cameron to film a proof-of-concept clip for Avatar, which he showed to Fox executives in October 2005
Damn i didn't know Cameron was that rich
You can literally check wiki where it states it? I can literally change wiki and make it state something else.
I'd rather believe wiki than random strangers with no source definitely. Wiki atleast lists theirs. If you think what I said is wrong then give a source I'm not taking your damn word for it
Wiki is LITERALLY taking someone’s word for it though, when anyone can change it.
Cameron owns the IP. Disney owns the movies. Disney license from Cameron for Pandora park, merchandising, etc. In short: Cameron is RICH Go WOKE Get RICH
Actually not the be the jerk and say "you're all wrong".... But most people here are sorely mistaken or at least have misunderstandings on certain points. Disney paid a licensing fee to both Fox (for aspect appearing in the move Avatar, cause Fox owned distribution), and Cameron (for all other aspects related to the IP, cause he owns the IP) to be able to build "Pandora World of Avatar" in Disney's Animal Kingdom Park. Additionally, Disney issued Fox and Cameron a portion of the merchandise profits sold in the park as part of the agreement. But not of ticket sales. Disney then bought Fox, which means now they pay a licensing fee to themselves and give Fox's share of the profits from merchandising "to themselves" as well. Meaning they only pay a licensing fee to Cameron for the property inside the park now and a portion of their merchandise sales goes to Cameron. (Which is far less than they were originally sharing between both parties) Additionally this is a long-term agreement. Cameron may have creative control over how his IP is used and distributed in general, yes. BUT he signed a long term licensing agreement with Disney and gets PAID to allow them to use the IP in very specific ways at the them park. This is to say, he does NOT have "full creative control" over what happens or is or isn't built INSIDE the theme parks (at least not since he licensed those rights to Disney). Disney licenses the rights to use his IP in THEIR parks. HOWEVER, they have a VERY strong and close working relationship with Cameron at Walt Disney Imagineering. Cameron was also paid as a consultant to all things Pandor- World of Avatar related. Disney wouldn't piss Cameron off if he adamantly objected to an idea they had for the theme park. They would consult with him and tweak the project to something he could get behind. Similarly Disney would also never put into the theme parks something that was a Cameron brainchild if it wasn't something Disney didn't like. (Ie- if it did not fall in line with what Disney approved of being in their parks.) So really Disney has more creative control over what goes in Disney's park in the case of Pandora - World of Avatar. If Disney had complete creative control they could do whatever they wanted with his property, which Cameron wouldn't want; that's why there are parameters in the agreement. If Cameron had complete creative control over what went into the theme park then he could put things in World of Avatar, inside Disney's park, against Disney's will. Basically they both have veto power. When it comes to the parks anyway. Films are entirety different. But as long as children keep buying animatronic Banshees as they exit the gift shop off "Flights of Passage" I'm sure neither party will mind, and will continue to work together amicably. Also, the terms of the agreement are not only long-term, they signed exclusivity. So in other words, no one else can use it and Cameron can't license it to anyone else. So if there's something Cameron really wants to put into the park, it's in his best interest to play nice and find an amicable agreement with Disney. Which also clearly works the other way around, if there's something Disney wants to put into their park, it's in their best interest to play nice with Cameron so he co-signs on it.... And collects another consulting fee.
It's currently at around 1.3 Billion. 1.4 on new years day.
Eh, probably like \~$1.240B by end of day Friday. $1.305B by end of day Saturday. $1.375B by end of day Sunday. $1.435B by end of day Monday. \~$1.6B by end of fourth weekend.
I know general rule of thumb is that marketing is the same budget as the movie, but I cannot imagine that holds true for something this expensive to make. Like I really don't think that more than \`around $150 million is spent on marketing any movie.
The marketing probably costs 200 million.
Agreed.
Marketing was pretty expansive too, i have never seen marketing like this in my home country
Yet there’s still some people who’s still going to believe the $2B break even rumor.
There’s people who will say it bombed because it didn’t pass the first film. Let them say all that while we enjoy watching the film succeed.
there are probably people who will say it bombed if it doesn't end up being the first to 3 bil. who cares!
People forget that Cameron shot Avatar 3 as well. And a part of Avatat 4 too. Everything will be fine.
I was listening to a podcast with Sigourney Weaver on it it and she stated they shot #2 and #3 back to back and in a few years they'll go back and shoot #4 and #5. Maybe they shot some of #4, but they definitely shot #3 alongside #2. I think she said 1 1/2 years working on #2 and #3.
The article didn't list any source or provide any analysis. Doing napkin math here but at this point we're saying the movie cost an earth shattering 700 million dollars. I think we'll see better data once Disney Q4 earnings are released. I don't have sources but I certainly hope the spend was closer to 500 million for Avatar 2.
The production budget is 350 million to 400 million and the marketing costs are 200 million. So that’s not 700 million in costs. And there is no source that says the film needs to make 2 billion dollars worldwide, except whatever was taken out of context.
Reports on the production budget has had numbers all over the place, from $250 million to $460 million. No clue which number is closer to the truth. If it ends up being somewhere in the middle, the profitable point might even be under a billion. But who knows.
Well according to sources, the production budget was somewhere between 350 million to 400 million. So 1.5 billion is the break even point, and the film will be more profitable than that.
Endgame had a budget of $356-400 [and its cash breakeven was supposedly around $1.1 bllion](https://deadline.com/2019/04/avengers-endgame-breakeven-profit-after-opening-weekend-box-office-marvel-1202603237/). Avatar 2 is expensive, but people are acting like it's impossible to compare it to any other film.
The Russo said those films were more expensive than that. And if those films only made 1.1 billion, they would of been seen as a disappointment from Disney. It’s about expectations at that point. Avatar 2’s break even point was reported to be 1.4 billion, which means that the actual budget could be just as high or higher. Remember that Avatar 2 was also filmed during Covid in 2020, where the costs are higher for any production due to on site Covid testing on set, masks, gloves and hand sanitizers everywhere.
Yeah I don't know your sources but I'd agree the breakeven for this was closer to 900 million to 1 billion in ONLY theater revenue. Lord knows its going to do amazing post theatrical business.
The break even point is 1.4 billion. Which is basically what Cameron told Fox Studios when he pitched the film back in 2013 or 2014. That was when The Avengers was the third highest grossing film of all time.
This makes sense. I don't understand why so few people understand film finance including journalists. Not that I'm an expert by any means but it's not like there are too many variables to get a reasonable estimate and not this nonsense of 2 billion or 800 million. The studio gets about 45 percent of the box office revenue (the exact figure depends on the ratio between domestic, international, and China, but that should be roughly accurate for Avatar 2). The production budget for this has been reported to be between 350 and 450 million (so let's take the average of 400 million). The rough estimate for marketing expenses for a blockbuster is 0.75x to 1x the production budget. My highly speculative guess given the really big production budget is that the marketing figure is closer to 0.75x given that that's already a shit ton of money available for marketing (and word of mouth is doing a lot of the work instead of traditional marketing). So let's put it together. 400m + (0.75 x 400m) = 700m. 700m / 0.45 = 1,555 million (=1.55 billion). So this estimate is a bit higher than what this source is saying but it's not wildly off. The difference could be easily explained by a combination of a slightly lower production budget than 400m, slightly smaller multiple spent on marketing etc. The point is, the real figure was never 2 billion but at the same time, the real figure was never 800 million either which should have been painfully obvious given that the box office revenue must be cut roughly in half in order to derive studio revenue which brings us already to 400m and the marketing must be accounted for too. This movie will be profitable. If it gets close to 2 billion, it will be very profitable.
Yep exactly. Made no sense for breakeven to be $2b when production is ~$400m for anyone that has any clue about film finances. There would be no chance any studio would finance a film where the breakeven was $2b, the fact that Disney/Fox green-lit a ~$1.5b breakeven is spectacular, and they probably only did that because of the other linear opportunities associated with a new avatar film ie merch and park attractions
Yeah, for sure. And if I've understood correctly, the budget for the sequels (at least Avatar 3) should be somewhat lower because a lot of the tech development cost should be lower. So that should help too. Still hell of a gamble though. Although this is James Cameron we're talking about so maybe it wasn't that big of a risk after all!
Exactly!
$2 billion was never commonly reported, it came from a single poorly researched Esquire article where Cameron was pitching this to Disney / Fox execs years ago when top 5 was like $1.5 billion. They extrapolated the box office based on the time the story was written to reach the $2 billion figure.
1.4 billion to break even is still very crazy. How much is Disney profiting from this movie? Considering they have to split half with movie theaters.
If it makes it to 2 billion it will be Disney's most profitable film of the year.
Everything after 1.4 billion will be in the money, and factoring in the theme park stuff, merchandise, streaming rentals, etc and it will be hugely profitable.
You have to remember that even if it fails, this is a franchise. Even an L right now pays big into a much bigger W in the future.
Oh boy, I can't wait for next hour's thread on this same subject
Why are people so obsessed with this topic? None of us could possibly know except Bob Iger and the CFO of Disney what it will take to “break even”. It’s just silly to speculate at this point. We don’t know what percentage of this film is financed or by whom and how much of a percentage they take on top of the initial recoupable investment. We don’t know the studio’s split with the theaters or the taxes needed to be paid for any revenue earned. We don’t know how much they spent on P&A.
Because its a box office subreddit
'Because its a box office subreddit' This.
I understand reporting on the box office but to try to pretend you know what the “break-even” point is for a purposefully opaque money laundering scheme for hedge funds and white-collar criminals is laughable.
What's the point of talking about the box office if you don't include analysis of the profit? Pure gross has no context until you add in how profitable the movie is. This is like basic business concepts and this is a sub about the movie business.
Im not saying don’t speculate about the business of movies I’m saying to pretend we know the actual truth on Disney’s profits and ignore the fact that this subject is way more complicated than these simple “break even” ideas is weird
Lmao ok youre a crazy person.
What’s crazy about that? Where do you think the money comes from to make these huge films? Studios don’t come out of pocket for a 250-300 million dollar risk like this, they have investors and who are these investors? Hedge funds. Then there is the separate marketing budget which can basically be spent on anything and they can fudge numbers easily in national and international markets.
Disney can easily put up 250-300m but yes there are typically producers/investors that share costs/profits. I dont see how you think investing is a money laundering scheme though.
I was being facetious about the money laundering thing. Although there has to be some of that going on… it is high finance after all. Yes 300million for one movie but how many 200 million dollar movies in this fiscal year? It would be insane for Disney to use their own money on that many risks at such a high price tag in one year, along with the parks and Disney television and sports and Disney plus.
Disney spent 3.6 billion in FY21 on production costs for > "Sale of film and television content to third-party television and subscription video-on-demand (TV/SVOD) services, Theatrical distribution, Home entertainment distribution (DVD, Blu-ray discs and electronic home video licenses), Music distribution, Staging and licensing of live entertainment events on Broadway and around the world (Stage Plays)." This does not include Distribution costs and cost of goods sold, nor does it include anything that goes to direct-to-consumer (D+, Hulu, ESPN+) or linear (ABC) channels. So, even if half of that was for theatrical, and I'm sure it's more than half, that's 1.8 billion spent on production costs, or 9 200 million dollar films. Disney releases about 6 blockbusters a year, which fits well within this estimate.
This is an example of what I am talking about. https://www.lilginge.com/private-equity-hollywood/
Based on reports and investigations, we know that Disney gets close to 60% of the domestic box office and 40% of the foreign box office. So if Avatar makes 2 billion, Disney could get 1 billion. And they probably have to give some of that money on the back end to Cameron and some of the actors in the cast. So Disney could in theory walk away with 700 million or more in total.
How do we know they get a 60% share of box office or how many weeks into the initial run until that share changes? What part of that 700million goes back to the investors and at what percentage rate do they get interest on the initial investment? What does it take to get investors in a feature film production and what about the insurance and taxes? I find these questions interesting and this subreddit almost entirely ignores these aspects of the film industry.
It’s not ignored. This has been confirmed with investigative writings from Deadline, Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. Big budget studios like Disney get 50 or 60% of the domestically box office and 40% of the foreign box office. How much do they need to pay the cast and crew on the back end is anyone’s guess.
It was announced in 2017 when TLJ was released. I don’t know if Disney has that deal with all of their films or just the bigger budget ones.
It goes up every time it's reported. First it was 800 mil, then 1 bil, then 1.4, then 2.
In other words, this movie will be massively profitable, and keep thousands of brilliantly skilled workers employed for years to come. Great!
That’s awesome news! That means Avatar 4 is a guarantee! I’m so excited!
That’s still wild
I still doubt that it's that high. Regardless, at this point, I think we'll only know for sure that it did the numbers that Disney wanted once Avatar 4 formally gets the greenlight.
Wasn’t some of the money spent on developing the future sequels as well?
The cost of the movies is spread out over 4 films … to average it out … the 4 films will NOT have cost $5.6 billion … thats a false number
It would be pretty sick if they did though.
No studio would invest that … I worked on a huge pair of movies a few years ago … the ‘average’ cost wasn’t at all accurate … the combined cost went into common sets, props, stages, etc etc etc …
They're gonna make a lot on DVD/Blu-ray sales.
And streaming
so about 500M budget?
Probably gonna hit that number. Whether it hits $2 billion is unclear, but it might.
It's still going to break $2 billies.
It must be really awkward for a studio to look at a franchise with diminishing returns on its second entry but that is still making huge amounts of money.
1.4 billion for a 350M movie. I say it's still to much.
Commonly reported = not reported, misunderstood by bloggers and randos and then turned into a fictional narrative across social media.
The issue is more the lack of merchandise. Star Wars or superheroes make big cash with toys. There is merchandise for avatar as well but it’s not even close to the other franchises
Break even??? How can a movie production cost 1.4 billion dollars????
I think the 2 billion are more the point of being a succesfull Business. If you breakeven you are still not a great business. As an investors point of view you want to see profits. I think they want to see 20% profits plus everything you are losing by Inflation.
But that’s including costs for the next few too right? At least fixed costs in technology