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but i'd rather rebut you with the simple truth about the "dying" movie house

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/reviews/?id=2190&p=s. htm
Flushed Away's problem was a $149 million dollar budget. Add advertising and it maybe broke even worldwide.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=wallaceand gromit05.htm
Curse of the Were-rabbit had a built-in audience and made $22 million less worldwide, but only cost $30 million.

Who was the moron that thought $149 million dollars was a good idea?

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/reviews/?id=2190&p=s. htm
Flushed Away's problem was a $149 million dollar budget. Add advertising and it maybe broke even worldwide.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=wallaceand gromit05.htm
Curse of the Were-rabbit had a built-in audience and made $22 million less worldwide, but only cost $30 million.

Who was the moron that thought $149 million dollars was a good idea?

The typical production budget for a Pixar film is approaching $100 million USD.

There is definitely something missing from those boxofficemojo numbers.
I don't know what the missing numbers are, but I compared what boxofficemojo had to say about Equilibrium which cost $20M and earned the studio close to $10M of profit.

It has been a few years since I listened to the director's commentary on the DVD, but I am pretty sure that he said that studio had been able to secure a total production budget of $30M, in large part because of the sale of foreign distribution rights.

Since actual production cost was only $20M, the studio decided that they would rather spend close to nothing on promotion and be content with the 'free' $10M profit, rather than risk the promotion budget on a quirky film.

Perhaps most of that production money was 'stupid german money' which I mentioned in a sibling post, I don't know any more details than what I've written. But whatever the case, the boxofficemojo numbers for Equilibrium don't reflect that the movie was profitable for the studio, so they may be leaving something out for Serenity too.

Considering that the film just came in at under even and we don't know the exact dvd production or marketing costs, I think it may be that they did not recoup the total costs. But even if they did make 52 million with a production budget of 39 million + 10 million marketing, we're talking about a modest profit (6%). And the studio would know that for any sequal they would be pulling in almost identical numbers. So why would they bother wasting a year filming a sequal when other modest movies are making profits of many times their production costs?(Even throw in 10 million for marketing, and you'd still have more than 300% profit)Serenity was given a chance, and it performed modestly. Good luck to Whedon with his future projects, but I doubt he could come back to the Firefly universe even if he wanted to.

TFA is incorrect about Serenity failing to make a profit when including DVD sales. I suspect someone forgot to include the non-US boxoffice. Serenity made $39M on a budget of $39M worldwide, and while that does include the marketing (probably around $10M), DVD sales would certainly have resulted in a profit. I believe it made about $13M on DVD and VHS rentals alone.

box office gross != profit... just saying. :)

The IMDB grosses are a bit out of date, though. Current figures from Box Office Mojo peg it at $431M domestic + $493M foreign.

The main page you link to only lists "Box Office" receipts. If you click on the DVD Rental/Sales link, you'll see that they made $25 million in DVD sales. So, the movie made a nice buck. And the Broadway show opened on March 21, 2001. While it may not be selling out anymore, it is STILL running, over 5 years later. Trust me, Mel is raking in the cash.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=producers. htm Made $38,054,424 Cost $45 million Net loss $7 Million I wish I had 7 million to lose. I assume the play is doing better, but how much of cut of that is he getting? I don't think playwrites get very much in the way of royalties.

Number one movie ain't good enough when it comes to money made.
Two links that sum it up
Horror Comedies
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=horr orcomedy.htm
Samuel L. Jackson in a bad comedy
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=man.htm

What did they expect?
I'll go see Snakes on a Plane sometime, but I like bad horror comedies. One of my friends won't because it's been overhyped too much.

Number one movie ain't good enough when it comes to money made.
Two links that sum it up
Horror Comedies
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=horr orcomedy.htm
Samuel L. Jackson in a bad comedy
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=man.htm

What did they expect?
I'll go see Snakes on a Plane sometime, but I like bad horror comedies. One of my friends won't because it's been overhyped too much.

Lets compare this to some other movies that have a similar target audience (source: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/):

Anaconda:

MPAA Rating: PG-13 Production Budget: N/A

Opening Weekend: $16,620,887
(2,456 theaters, $6,767 average)
% of Total Gross: 25.2%

A's: 38 5.7%
B's: 175 26.1%
C's: 261 38.9%
D's: 118 17.6%
F's: 79 11.8%

Anaconda THE HUNT FOR THE BLOOD ORCHID:

MPAA Rating: PG-13 Production Budget: $20 million

Opening Weekend: $12,812,287
(2,905 theaters, $4,410 average)
% of Total Gross: 39.7%

A's: 33 12.9%
B's: 33 12.9%
C's: 64 25.1%
D's: 46 18.0%
F's: 79 31.0%

Snakes On A Plane:

MPAA Rating: R Production Budget: $33 million

Opening Weekend: $13,806,311
(3,555 theaters, $3,883 average)
% of Total Gross: 82.9%

A's: 159 54.8%
B's: 72 24.8%
C's: 15 5.2%
D's: 7 2.4%
F's: 37 12.8%

I'm guessing that if this would of been pg-13, it would of done better. Skip the nude, and add the catch phrase.
It might of also helped if people like me that went to the first local showing weren't forced to respond with a 'meh' as far as the movie goes. It was pretty obvious this wasnt originally intended to be R rated. The CG was very good, and I did get suprised a couple of times, but I wanted more snake killing (with associated gore). I found it odd that when the snakes attacked people it was gory, but the people didn't really actively fight back they just screamed and ran.
I know this is post 9/11 airplane stuff, so its not like everyone has a huge knife or a sword, but they could of fashioned clubs and went on a beating spree. Toss in a couple more tense search/rescue missions and let a main character get picked off next time. After the intense coverage of this movie I just spent most the movie waiting for what I knew was going to happen (catch phrase, nude scene, etc) which made it pretty hard for me to sell to others.

Also, the interview with the director twit where he downplayed the internet influence on the movie (the reshoot/reworking of it as an R title) almost made me skip it all together.

I have sat through all sorts of boring/painful recitals and local concerts because I knew the people involved, and felt involved since I knew them. Maybe next time you get all that positive buzz, you shouldn't down play the people that gave you the buzz and they'll pay their 20$ for a ticket and a soda.

*looks at the Da Vinci Code box office*

Oooh, it cost $200 million to make, and just made $650 million in worldwide profits so far.

I feel so sorry for them. :-(

You guys must stop downloading that movie right now!

You aid crippling the movie industry! Just look at where we are today! :-/

So, I hadn't heard the claim that Halo 2 had the most profitable launch day in the history of entertainment before, and since you provided no evidence, I assumed you were just spewing garbage.

I decided to look it up, and I admit I was wrong.

GameDaily has Halo's opening day sales (first 24 hours) at 2.4 million, which multiplied by the $60 price tag (which isn't a static value in itself, as some collector's editions were made, and I assume sold at a higher price) gives us $144 million.

has Revenge of the Sith at $50 million on opening day. I was curious how much this would have been affected by the fact that big name movies like that usually relase on a Thursday (I imagine the number would have been higher if it were released on a Friday), but the biggest opening weekend was Spiderman at ~$115 million.

The most paid for any piece of artwork was Picasso's Boy with a Pipe at $104 million.

So I guess I have to admit you were right. But in the future, please back up your claims a little better.

Don't be ridiculous.

In 2005, the movie industry's total domestic revenue was a bit shy of $9 billion.

Intel Corporation's revenue in the same period was almost $39 billion.

So that's one company in one sector of the economy (albeit a big one) makes, all by itself, over four times what the entire movie industry makes.

While we're here, let's toss off some other revenue figures: IBM earned over $91 billion, Microsoft nearly $40 billion, General Motors almost two hundred billion dollars. GM lost more money last year than the movie industry earned in total (not counting expenses), and barely noticed.

The Copyright Cartel has done an excellent job as portraying itself as a critical industry, but don't be fooled. They are, at best, a miniscule piece of the American economy.

Software is somewhat of a different story, but they have their own ridiculousness (BSA), and you'll notice that of the companies cited, only one of them makes most of their money because of software copyrights.

Production Budget: $113 million

You are WAY off if you think $113 is anywhere NEAR the record. I think what you *may* have read somewhere is the "cutesy" fact that the new trilogy movies are *technically* "The most expensive independent films ever" because they are technically financed by a single individual (George Lucas himself).

For God's sake, let it rest for a while. Generate some fresh ideas. In this age of real war, and more gritty realistic fare like Battlestar Galactica and Firefly, Star Trek has become hokey and stale. Let it rest until its time comes around again.

Battlestar Galactica. An excellent point of comparison. Graphics aren't fantastic, but they're good. What SFX shots are shown seem to appear to have some realism. Writing is interesting, although certain episodes stick out as forced. Certain SciFi appeal -- which limits the audience. While it's setting records fro the SciFi channel, it's not being bought out by bigger networks.

Firefly. My personal favorite of recent fare. The SFX are a notch below Battlestar Galactica, but the writing makes up for it. There are some inconsistencies which as of yet stand to be reasoned away (like why Zoe really respects Mal). Certain SciFi appeal, although the movie performed like "a below average genre picture" if I recall correctly. The show couldn't sustain the audience to pay the production costs.

You've chosen to compare a hypothetical Star Trek prequel to modern underperforming SciFi. Nemesis, arguably the worst Star Trek movie, required back story and had trouble standing on its own. The appeal to the mass market was zilch, and the appeal to those who watched ST:TNG when it was first run was mediocre, because it seemed to imply that we'd never stopped watching reruns on TNT/Spike. I believe that movies can be an escape from realism. I think that's partially why Star Wars did so well in the face of terrible acting, groundbreaking but horrible SFX and wooden writing -- it was during the cold war. There was an epic story.

How about a Star Trek that stands on its own? A few references here and there for the fans, but largely something that doesn't require a huge back story? Don't make me need to know why it's significant Riker and Troi are marrying (and don't make me remove myself from the story for a reality check, "What happend to Troi and Warf?"). There's no problem with a Kahn tossed in -- a minor character from a single episode to act as a nod to the fanatics -- as long as the movie briefly summarizes in all the right places the gist of the conflict.

Yes, its's cumulative. It grossed about $30 million worldwide. Before DVD sales and other revenue like TV rights and such it is/was deeply in the red.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=solaris.ht m

Despite this, the same critics say it will be a big money-maker.

So? Most of Slashdot is in agreement that the Star Wars prequels were giant flaming piles of crap, but they were some of the highest grossing movies in years.

It was 22nd in the top grossing films of 1982. Blade Runner was 27th that year.

Maybe it wasn't the smash hit they were hoping for, but it looks like it did very well.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/

You mean the Stealth with a budget of approximately $130 million and a box-office gross of just $32,116,746? I don't think that exactly qualifies as a 'blockbuster'...

Brokeback mountain cost $14 million to make and took in worldwide boxoffice of $138,542,000 (source). This is an interesting definition of "failure."

But didn't Kong profit by over 200 million dollars? Box Office Mojo says it cost $207 million and earned $543 million so far. I'm not sure why Locas and this thread is referring to this as a disaster. We should ALL have such disasters.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=kingkong05 .htm

How many movies came out last year with King Kong's budget? Just one. The "average" cost of a movie is already far, far below $200 million... I would say that the "average" cost of movies is already in the $15-20 million range.

Let's consider the first X-Men movie. It was a blockbuster, had tonnes of special effects, well-known actors... And they did it all for a reported $75 million USD, plus marketing costs of about $22.7 million USD. Not to say that the movie was perfect (the script certainly needed work -- who's the idiot who came up with "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?"), but it was an undeniably huge success. X-Men almost made back its production costs on opening weekend by bringing in about $54 million, and has so far made back about three times the production & marketing budget with a total lifetime gross of about $296 million worldwide.

In my opinion:

a) A bigger budget doesn't guarantee a better movie. (Waterworld, anyone?)
b) Spending more on scriptwriters and less on A-List actors would do many movies wonders.
c) Who thought that a sequel of a remake of a remake was a good idea in the first place?
d) One of the main reasons that people like indie films right now is because they don't suffer as much from over-recycled plots and characters.
e) Stop charging $10 to $15 CAD a head for a movie at the theatre and people might go more often!
f) Investors seem much too keen on throwing good money after bad on ideas for productions that haven't been thought through from a "what does the consumer want?" perspective.

"The market forces that exist today make it unrealistic to spend $200 million on a movie," said Lucas, a near-billionaire from his feverishly franchised outer-space epics. "Those movies can't make their money back anymore. Look at what happened with 'King Kong.'"

Source: http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=kingkong05.htm

Ok...according to Box Office Mojo: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=kingkong05 .htm/ King Kong cost $217 million to make. And it's made, worldwide, $544 million. Now, only about half of that goes back to the studio, and there were certainly huge marketing costs, but we've still got DVD and Pay Cable and Basic Cable and Broadcast rights and Video Game Licenses and Merchandised Crappola. Maybe they're not Titanic-happy, but it's hard to see them crying.

I'm not trying to justify piracy. It's wrong. I'm saying they deliberately skew the numbers to make piracy look worse than it is.

Here's some interesting information:

Movie ticket sales declined more in 2000 than in 2004. Online movie piracy was hardly commonplace then, yet sales declined for two years straight. 2005 showed the biggest drop in ticket sales, which might best be explained by rising ticket prices and the market penetration of large, high-definition home entertainment systems.

I'm not trying to justify piracy. It's wrong. I'm saying they deliberately skew the numbers to make piracy look worse than it is.

Here's some interesting information:

Movie ticket sales declined more in 2000 than in 2004. Online movie piracy was hardly commonplace then, yet sales declined for two years straight. 2005 showed the biggest drop in ticket sales, which might best be explained by rising ticket prices and the market penetration of large, high-definition home entertainment systems.

>Chicken Little bombs (who saw that one coming?)
Huh? It did $250M worldwide, and was the 14th in US income for 2005. Source

And The Incredibles, which was a drop from Finding Nemo, made $631M worldwide. Source. So, yeah, I'd call Chicken a flop. You'd have to go back to 1998 to find a Pixar flick that didn't break $400M.

FYI:
Finding Nemo: $864,625,978
Monsters Inc.: $525,366,597
Toy Story 2: $485,015,179
A Bug's Life: $363,398,565
Toy Story: $361,958,736

>Chicken Little bombs (who saw that one coming?)
Huh? It did $250M worldwide, and was the 14th in US income for 2005. Source

..you keep paying to see them.

Nobody's paying to see Uwe Boll movies in theaters.

The picture looks a little different when you consider things from the perspective of Buena Vista releases. Walt Disney Pictures isn't just animation (think "Narnia"), and The Walt Disney Company isn't just Walt Disney Pictures: think Touchstone and others. If your point was that Pixar animations do better than Walt Disney animations, then sure -- point made. My point is that "animation" is only a subset of Disney films.

• Toy Story (1995) $191
• Bugs Life (1998) $162
• Toy Story2 (1999) $245
• Monsters, Inc (2001) $255
• Finding Nemo (2003) $339
• Incredibles (2004) $261

• Aladdin (1992) $217
• The Lion King (1994) $312
• Pocahontas (1995) $141
• Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) $100
• Hercules (1997) $99
• Mulan (1998) $120
• Tarzan (1999) $171
• The Emperor's New Groove (2000) $89
• Atlantis (2001) $84
• Lilo & Stitch (2002) $145
• Treasure Planet (2002) $38
• Brother Bear (2003) $85
• Home on the Range (2004) $50

Serenity didn't make any money. In fact, including international box office sales, they just barely broke even. Most studio producers, therefore, would not agree that the best place to profit is making another movie. For the same price as Serenity, they could get almost 2 seasons of Firefly. This means more ad revenue, and more money when the show gets syndicated.

Problem is, Fox still owns the TV rights (as I recall). For some unexplained reason, Fox loves sticking it to innovative shows. I don't think they'll give up the rights for cheap.

However, according to the Browncoats website, the main reason the donation campaign was stopped was because they were afraid of possibly giving the producers NIH Syndrome by donating money to the cause.

Serenity was fairly well reviewed but it was not a major box office success. In fact, it lost plenty of money in the box office. The total worldwide gross was less than the production budget (I don't believe those numbers include marketing). See this link (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=serenity. htm). Not to mention the fact that the studio only gets about 50% of the box office. They split the rest with the theaters. I think the studio usually gets like 80% of the first week and it declines after that.

So, it was not a major box office success. They'll probably sell enough DVDs to break even though. Those are insanely profitable for them and the audience proved to that they will purchase them based on the sales of the TV show's DVD set.

With movies, we don't even want to see most of them, so their blaming things on piracy will just get worse when no one goes to see movies again in 2006.

It's a good point.

All the BS about piracy impacting sales at the box office for the 2005 year were a complete joke. Take a look at a list of box office revenues by year.

The movie industry was all up in arms just because the trend showing up to yearly 10% increase in sales wasn't continued. While the increase streak came close to ending in 2003, it is interesting to note that 2005 will be the first year since 1991 that movie sales haven't increased.

Damnable pirates! It's just not possible that rising ticket prices and poor movies have anything to do with it! The public is stupid. We tell them to go see movies and they do. It must be pirates, and draconian DRM is the only thing that can save us!

I'll bite - Yes the show flopped in its original run, but the circumstances in which this occured were more than stacked against it. The two-hour pilot (which explained many of the elements in Firefly's complicated world) was cut, episodes were shown out of order and were consistantly prempted by other broadcasts; it almost seemed like the powers at FOX wanted it to be canceled from the get-go.

Strong DVD sales of Firefly were part of the reason that Serenity was ever filmed in the first place. Personally I only caught one episode when it aired (and never thought much of it), but was hooked once seeing it as it should have aired on DVD.

Firefly DVD sales made the series popular and should be the baseline of its "success". Anyone who bought the series on DVD already was "bothered" to go out, spend $30-40 on the boxed set and then bring them home. Although movie sales were lackluster, it certainly wasn't a flop (actually $38m in 7 weeks not $25m as stated in the summary). What will make up for even those profits will most likely again be DVD sales, which Whedon stated in an interview.

The movie seems close to breaking even as it is:

boxofficemojo

I'd say $40M in DVD sales isn't out of the question. IIRC, the movie industry makes as much on DVDs as it does on theatrical screenings.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=serenity.h tm

Looks more like $38 million to me, which is roughly the production cost, and most definitely not a failure.

It is disappointing that they didn't reach $80 million, as then there'd be 2 more movies made, but this isn't grounds to give up on the series.

Other than Joss not having the rights to the show (as mentioned above), I had heard that the episodes were on the order of a $1 mil / each to film and release.

Double-checking, I'm wrong, it's $2 million per episode in production costs for Firefly... That's almost as much as ABC's Lost, and there they have a huge audience and marketing engine behind the show. They only got $38 mil total for the Serenity movie, about $ 3/4 mil short of the public production costs.

In my humble opinion, Joss should be seeking to release an adult-level animated series, similar to WB's Batman, or even an anime-style futuristic romp. The level of detail, varied scenery, and scale of the sets are just too big for production offices these days, and if you can't film it, you can certainly draw it.

[Serenity] did alright at the box office, but nothing spectacular. It certainly did well enough so that Whedon can get funding for another if he is so inclined.

I'm interested to know where you got this idea. Did Whedon say it somewhere? Or some other figure that would be in the position to know?

By all accounts that I've heard and read, Serenity was a bit of a bomb. According to Box Office Mojo, Serenity had a production budget of 39 million and hasn't even broken even yet. That counts world-wide sales and it's effectively done with its theater run. Marketing costs aren't factored in at all. Not breaking even doesn't sound like "doing alright" to me!

It's coming out on DVD very soon and it historically does very well in that market. I don't know enough about the movie industry to know if that counts when they decide on financing new movies, though. I'm crossing my fingers...

I am as much a Serenity fan as any other non-Browncoat Firefly fan, but until somebody in the know tells otherwise, I'm going to have to conclude the the movie was a flop.

I'm sure it's based on the number of screens that the movie shows on. Once you have that number, I'm sure your pick will usually be pretty close.

I think the industry has hit upon a new revenue model for mediocre films and CDs that have underperforming retail sales.

Over last year's four-day MLK weekend, Coach Carter grossed $29 million on 2,524 screens.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=1654&p=s.htm That comes to $11,569 per screen for the four day period. Now if you augment that with a few $100,000 infringement suits, then even bombs like Ishtar, Waterworld, and Gigli can turn profitable.

Remember how much $$$ Armageddon brought in?

Something about two space shuttles docking simultaniously to a spinning Mir space station. I had to leave, I was getting a headache, especially when were walking around in a spinning can, in space. The first thing that came to my mind was something about the special effect dept running out of funding for this scene.

Anyway, my point...

If that movie can make that much money it is very possible that these 'astronauts' actually beleive they are in space.

According to these stats, Serenity has about broken even, counting domestic and overseas ticket sales.

Rule of thumb would be that the theatrical release generates around 25% of a film's income. DVD/video sales and rental are usually around half the total gross. Given the nature of Firefly/Serenity's fan base, I would think it likely they might get more than the usual percentage from DVD sales. Word of mouth and unexpectedly high DVD sales were what spurred creation of the movie in the first place.

I don't know if there's a definition of "flop". It seems that Serenity is almost certain to be a money-maker overall, and about equally certain not be be a block-buster of "Titanic" proportions. Still 100% return on an investment isn't bad.

I can recall seeing Josh Whedon quoted to the effect that Serenity needed to make $80M to guarantee development of another sequel film. I don't know if that's total, or just theatrical release.

I'm sure there of hundreds of stories like mine.

Before everyone here starts oozing with happiness about Serenity, it should be noted that IT FLOPPED. Despite a lot of attention, lots of dedicated fans, and great reviews, it was not even able to recap production costs at the box office. Look at this years yearly box office to get an idea of just how badly it did (for those tired of scrolling, it is in place 77).

Now, with DVD sales I am sure the studio won't end up in the red when all is said and done, but $25 million for a high budget high profile movie is terrible. Serenity will probably be pointed to in the future as a good reason not to use cult DVD followings as a reason to greenlight films. Sorry to tell ya all.

I'm sure there of hundreds of stories like mine.

Before everyone here starts oozing with happiness about Serenity, it should be noted that IT FLOPPED. Despite a lot of attention, lots of dedicated fans, and great reviews, it was not even able to recap production costs at the box office. Look at this years yearly box office to get an idea of just how badly it did (for those tired of scrolling, it is in place 77).

Now, with DVD sales I am sure the studio won't end up in the red when all is said and done, but $25 million for a high budget high profile movie is terrible. Serenity will probably be pointed to in the future as a good reason not to use cult DVD followings as a reason to greenlight films. Sorry to tell ya all.

In the bigger picture, we live in a world frought with privacy invasions that we have learned to accept...but stick "web-enabled" in front of it and people get all crazy. The photos you drop off at Wal-Mart can be turned over to the Secret Service, no telling what happens with your pay-per-view video data, and your boss can watch your at-work search patterns by analyzing your firewall logs, yet we continue to use these services. I'm not trying to say these things are good, just that we can't go all Chicken Little over every new product offering that comes out. You can always choose not to play (in some cases).

Box Office Mojo beats the socks off of IMDB in terms of useless box office data. Daily ... Weekend ... Yearly ... All Time ...

Like IMDb, Box Office Mojo seems to be cross-referenced out the wazoo.