Hundreds of thousands of films are released in theaters around the world and they are all competing to be even marginally successful in this risky business. Every year we hear about films that are massive hits like "The Avengers," "Star Wars," and "Black Panther."
We also hear about the films that were massive box office flops like "Blade Runner 2049," "Mortal Engines." or "A Wrinkle in Time." However, predicting what is and isn't a box office flop can be harder than you think.
The first step would be to find a reliable source for reporting box office revenue. Box Office Mojo and The Numbers are two of the most reliable sources for box office reporting that I've come across. They often include film budgets, foreign box office, home video sales, and box office rankings as well. However, they don't always give you the complete picture.
For example, one might assume that if a film made more money, no matter the amount, than it's budget it was a success. If you do the math it should be that simple, right. However, these sites never tell us the full story when it comes to the "true" cost of making a film.
These sites display the production budgets, but they never display the marketing and distribution budgets. When they give you the production cost, that's only the money that went into making the film. This leaves out the cost of marketing a film which includes billboards, commercials, trailers, websites, and posters. This also leaves out the cost of distributing a film to thousands of theaters across the globe.
While marketing and distribution budgets can vary from film to film, it is often a safe "rule of thumb" that the cost of marketing and distribution matches that of the production budget. This means that a film that had a $200 million dollar production budget would probably have a $200 million dollar marketing and distribution budget. This means that the total cost of that film would be roughly $400 million dollars.
If you ever wondered why a film that earned $300 million dollars at the global box office on a $200 million dollar budget is considered a failure by many, this is why. This has started to become a major problem in Hollywood as production budgets increase and release schedules start to get more crowded. More and bigger budget films are fighting for what dollars the movie-going public will give them.
Predicting the success of a film is not always that simple. Some high budget films may have lower marketing budgets and vice versa. However, the best way to predict a film's success is to multiply the production budget by two and subtract it from the total box office earnings. What you're often left with is a close approximation of the profit, or lack thereof, that a film has earned. I know it can sometimes get confusing, but hopefully, this will clear things up for people who are new to the film scene or need help with their fantasy movie league bracket.
