I KNEW the movie would flop

[Nathreim]

I'm not sure why this matters. Wanda's other businesses have nothing to do with the movie.

Theaters take a cut but if they own the theater they are getting all of the money.

[Pann]

Theaters take a cut but if they own the theater they are getting all of the money.

As a company they are getting all money (after taxes and other boring stuff) but Legendary and their cinema chains are separate entities each with their own costs and revenue streams. From the point of view of Wanda, as a whole, they would have been better off if their cinemas had shown a movie(s) made by another studio.

[Gzo]

This is Sony Pictures employee's email leaked by a hacker group when they broke into the computers of Sony Pictures Entertainment:

"Are you aware that Men In Black 3 may gross $600M at the box office, and yet will lose money for SPE? Shouldn't we question that strategy? Why are some studios making Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Twilight - and we are considering movies like Moneyball, Steve Jobs story, Captain Phillips Story, Evel Knievel story, etc. Are you aware that SPE only has 1 franchise - Spiderman. Yet, it took 5 years to generate a sequel? Spidey 3 was released in summer 2007, #4 in 2012. Don't harry potters come out over 2-3 years?"

According to the employee of Sony Pictures Entertainment, MIB 3 couldn't break even if it grossed $600M. The film's Production Budget was $225M.

[Relapses]

This is Sony Pictures employee's email leaked by a hacker group when they broke into the computers of Sony Pictures Entertainment:

"Are you aware that Men In Black 3 may gross $600M at the box office, and yet will lose money for SPE? Shouldn't we question that strategy? Why are some studios making Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Twilight - and we are considering movies like Moneyball, Steve Jobs story, Captain Phillips Story, Evel Knievel story, etc. Are you aware that SPE only has 1 franchise - Spiderman. Yet, it took 5 years to generate a sequel? Spidey 3 was released in summer 2007, #4 in 2012. Don't harry potters come out over 2-3 years?"

According to the employee of Sony Pictures Entertainment, MIB 3 couldn't break even if it grossed $600M. The film's Production Budget was $225M.

Due to the nefarious methods Hollywood uses to disclose and obfuscate its accounting practices, every film ever produced is going to have a different breakpoint.

[Tackhisis]

That's funny that 600/225=425/160, which is the current WoW box office. :P

[Deleted]

Not going to waste my time debunking repetitive spam tactics of chronic liars fabricating and spinning facts, but there is one big misconception/lie that keeps rampaging trough half the thread along with them...

most/all Chinese cinemas/screens are owned by Wanda who owns Legedary too! Changes everything!

This is probably pulled from the report that Wanda would own 80 of the top 100 top grossing Chinese theaters and multiple movie theather chains.

They don't really own that much.

Wanda (most recent report in 2016) owns 'only' 2.650 out of roughly 29.000 Chinese screens (in 2015, at +4000 screens/year the total likely far beyond that but the point is already made even with old numbers).
Edit: According to a China Daily report from June 2016 Wanda currently has '18 percent ownership of 39,000 Chinese cinemas and theatres' though that most likely refers to 'screens' in the cinemas and theaters and doesn't exactly add up with Wandas screen numbers.
Wandas (most recent report I found in 2015) ticket sales made 'only' $0.6 billion out of roughly $7 billion Chinese box office ticket sales.
Wanda (most recent report I found in 2014) accounted 'only' for 13.5% of all Chinese ticket sales (head count)
Edit: Wanda owns half of the IMAX/3D movies in the country (from the pressreport of Wanda after doubts about hard to believe record visits in a flood struck region by industry watcher)
They are invested in a few digital and retailer distribution channels suited for movies but nothing major that gets even mentioned often.

Its impressive and Wandas movie business takes the lead from about 50 Chinese movie chains. But however you try to spin it, thats far away from some monopoly as its heavily implied or proclaimed in many comments here.

Its the funding and marketing power of the Chinese owner, partner and investors that is massive and pushing the movies 'success' not the distribution e.g Tencents massive online marketing power monopoly from its i forgot how many trillion user heavy QQ platform where the movie got advertised.

Now I want to add something to the inept and grossly ignorant arguments usually based of that lie.

Wanda owns both theaters and the movie maker thus gets even more revenue and profits! Warcraft is saved!

If you are saying they can easier reach their target to get even, the second you include theater revenue you are changing the subject and context from 'a general movie project' to 'Wandas movie business' and all the talk for the last 100 pages about rules of thumb for the profit line of a movie project for the movie maker become irrelevant, including the calculated targets between $400 - $500 Million. The movie distributor and movie maker together will face entirelly different revenue and profit targets, which are obviously going to be higher than Legendary's individualy. And thats an even more complicated question you can hardly ever qualify because there is little to nothing to compare it to.

If you are saying its more revenue and more profit in total and lets assume it actually is. Well yeah its a bigger cut of the total. The same total box office sales that could have been made with our without Wandas hat on Legendary. They paid for Legendary to get a bigger cut out of it. Those revenues don't come for free. Its called an investment into another business that had cost them $3.5 Billion. That doesn't make the Warcraft movie automatically a better performing movie project. Where the benefit lies is the revenue they faciliated trough trough that purchase on top of the combined revenue, a more stable porfolio and not having all your savings rotting useless on some bank account.

Wanda owns both many cinemas China and U.S.A and Legendary and is in control of the cut Legendary receives from the box office sales

First reminder that Wanda doesn't even control most of the Chinese market so even if that was a thing it would have little effect and that we are not talking about Legendary's profit line the second you include other operations.

This happens post ticket sales and changes nothing about the movies box office performance again. 50:50 or 25:75 or 0:100, the distribution is not going to raise Wandas net. You just suggest to redistribute money from one of their business to another of theirs at cost of the fomer. The former will make less and won't reach its own targets then, congratulations. The U.S. isn't a tax heaven either (reminder 'Hollywood Accounting' has nothing to do with tax evasion but evasion of contractual obligations i.e. license fees and royalties, Legendary is paying its taxes). No point moving the money they already made in their Chinese theaters to the U.S.A.. Its not going to become magically more at the end and make the Warcraft movie a greater box office hit.

On top of that it would also violate Chinese state mandated guidelines serving as a baseline for profit distribution between movie maker and distributor. Have fun with that.


Oh and Im pretty sure Wanda, Wanda Cinemas and Legendary are not using rules of thumbs from enthusiaststic redacteurs and blog poster of any source to calculate their projects profit line when they have the actual numbers for expenses and contracts to calculate it precisely.

[Deleted]

just another mediocre ameircan hamburger level movie.

about cast: it appears that 13 tribes assembled. but that is just hollywood and its boring tendencies.

did you see that dark mongoloid elf? hahaha that is some meta shit on the shannara's level of absurd.

[Deleted]

except it didn't, it made some bank, but RT score can be explained by watching pretentious and just unprofessional adam rosser interview with duncan jones

[rda]

except it didn't, it made some bank, but RT score can be explained by watching pretentious and just unprofessional adam rosser interview with duncan jones

So far it looks like the movie lost money, not "made some bank".

[Deleted]

So far it looks like the movie lost money, not "made some bank".

you're correct i thought it was in the black already with a budget of $160mil and $430mil profit, but after looking at wiki it looks it's still, according to ''The Hollywood Reporter'' $20mil in the red
marketing, who would've thought it was expensive?

[quras]

you're correct i thought it was in the black already with a budget of $160mil and $430mil profit, but after looking at wiki it looks it's still, according to ''The Hollywood Reporter'' $20mil in the red
marketing, who would've thought it was expensive?

Actually, the massive increase in marketing cost is one of the biggest hurdles movies have these days:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...ruggles-721818

We know warcraft spent some big bucks there. Maybe not so much in the U.S. as Id imagine Universal knew what was going to happen state side and decided to save money in that area. They let the international market do their own thing and apparently they took out all the stops. It cost them in the end but it also helped to make sure they were not quite so in the red as they could have been.

This has been posted a few times but read just how big their marketing plan was.

http://variety.com/2016/film/asia/te...-s-1201794300/

[Plehnard]

you're correct i thought it was in the black already with a budget of $160mil and $430mil profit, but after looking at wiki it looks it's still, according to ''The Hollywood Reporter'' $20mil in the red
marketing, who would've thought it was expensive?

If they are only in the red by 20Million by Boxoffice that would be a great thing, because they already made additional 18 Million with the PPTV streaming contract.
That would mean they are only 2 Million in the red and would turn profitable soon.
Could you link the article?

Actually, the massive increase in marketing cost is one of the biggest hurdles movies have these days:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...ruggles-721818

We know warcraft spent some big bucks there. Maybe not so much in the U.S. as Id imagine Universal knew what was going to happen state side and decided to save money in that area. They let the international market do their own thing and apparently they took out all the stops. It cost them in the end but it also helped to make sure they were not quite so in the red as they could have been.

This has been posted a few times but read just how big their marketing plan was.

200 on advertising, that's totally bonkers. In that light the 110 of warcraft even seem reasonable. How does it make sense to invest 100million in the US market if you're unlikely to get that amount of money back? A film grossing over 200 there is more the exception than the rule. (there's only 8 films that managed to do so in the last 12 month)

[BenBos]

Total box office is still growing: 430 million dollars.

Hollywood profit rule = Initial Production Cost * 2.5 = Point of profit.

Warcraft : 160 million * 2.5 = 400 million = Point of profit.

So according to Hollywood standard calculations Warcraft already made + 30 million dollars.


Add in the upcoming DVD's and a Warcraft 2 movie is a certainty.

The hate trollers may type as many posts as they want, they got owned by the external US markets.

There is absolutely NO reason why the 2.5 cost factor would not apply to Warcraft in view of the fact that Wang also owns Legendary AND the main distribution chains in China.

Clear as water.

[quras]

Hollywood profit rule = Initial Production Cost * 2.5 = Point of profit.

As we have stated. This is incorrect is it doesn't factor in enough for marketing.

Again, something along the lines of budget + Marketing x2 gets you to a closer figure.

If you really want to nail it down a bit more. I'd suggest you read a bit of this on ROI and break even points.

https://storyality.wordpress.com/201...on-investment/

What Benbos is given is a bit flawed as to make it seem warcraft has done better than it really has. Granted, it's all a bit of guess work on our end but his figure is low-balling it.

SNIP...

200 on advertising, that's totally bonkers. In that light the 110 of warcraft even seem reasonable. How does it make sense to invest 100million in the US market if you're unlikely to get that amount of money back? A film grossing over 200 there is more the exception than the rule. (there's only 8 films that managed to do so in the last 12 month)

I agree. It's a bit crazy.

I'm not sold that Universal did that for the U.S. for the warcraft movie. I think they saw the way it was leaning and held back dollars in marketing to make a better ROI. Something I do not think China did. They struck where the iron was hottest and where the term fanatical fan is an understatement. They stocked the fire like a champ in the few areas where it was best. They got a great return but was is enough overall. I'm not sold that is was just yet and even if they do break even, it doesn't look like enough profit was made for them to really care. There not in the business to make such a small ROI in the end.

Time will tell of course where all this lands but they spent a shitload in 10 years. They wont jump very quickly into a sequel.

[rda]

Total box office is still growing: 430 million dollars.

Hollywood profit rule = Initial Production Cost * 2.5 = Point of profit.

Warcraft : 160 million * 2.5 = 400 million = Point of profit.

So according to Hollywood standard calculations Warcraft already made + 30 million dollars.


Add in the upcoming DVD's and a Warcraft 2 movie is a certainty.

The hate trollers may type as many posts as they want, they got owned by the external US markets.

There is absolutely NO reason why the 2.5 cost factor would not apply to Warcraft in view of the fact that Wang also owns Legendary AND the main distribution chains in China.

Clear as water.

Helo, BenBos, hellooooooo?! Can you hear me?

You have been saying the exact same thing for ten posts or so now.

People replied to you, go read the replies. For example, this one:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post41272727

Hellooooooooo?! Damn, the signal seems to not get through, BenBos keeps dropping...

[Tharkkun]

This is Sony Pictures employee's email leaked by a hacker group when they broke into the computers of Sony Pictures Entertainment:

"Are you aware that Men In Black 3 may gross $600M at the box office, and yet will lose money for SPE? Shouldn't we question that strategy? Why are some studios making Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Twilight - and we are considering movies like Moneyball, Steve Jobs story, Captain Phillips Story, Evel Knievel story, etc. Are you aware that SPE only has 1 franchise - Spiderman. Yet, it took 5 years to generate a sequel? Spidey 3 was released in summer 2007, #4 in 2012. Don't harry potters come out over 2-3 years?"

According to the employee of Sony Pictures Entertainment, MIB 3 couldn't break even if it grossed $600M. The film's Production Budget was $225M.

That's because of shady accounting practices the studios use. Look at Fellowship of the Ring and the lawsuit by Peter Jackson.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/bu...ings.html?_r=0

For example they might setup 3 companies. One which produces the movie, one that owns the rights and another that the actors work for. The actors company earns some revenue but generally takes a huge loss because it's paying all the actors. The company owning the rights earns a small piece of revenue as well but not all of it. The company that produces the film earns the biggest piece and turns that revenue into profit.

That's why Peter Jackson sued them because he wasn't getting the money he deserved. He won too.

You also have this article. http://www.slashfilm.com/insane-stud...f-the-phoenix/

Studios write up contacts to pay actors based on net profits then use accounting tricks to avoid paying bonuses. I'm actually surprised (well not really) that lawyers haven't had a field day going after them like they did Enron and other companies.

[Vynestra]

Even if Warcraft is only in the red 20m, I think they can get past that point with whatever merchandise/dvds/etc they decide to sell. If we really consider it, blizzard might want to go for a sequel even if it's only barely profitable, just because they want more warcraft movies.

But I think if its only barely profitable, it might be better next time to save money on the US side of marketing, and other markets it didn't do as well on, and really really focus on China.

[Cazmosis]

For people with the ability to spot flops or as we used to call them "straight to videos," The Warcraft movie's inability to come across as even halfway decent to anyone, but the most delusional "I'll watch anything" moviegoer is not a surprise in the least. It's a bad movie. It made money off it's name. That was the only point to this excursion.

Future guaranteed flops:

-No Man's Sky
-Suicide Squad

[Plehnard]

430+ Million now and here's the hollywoodreporter article:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...-avoids-910268
15-20 million in the minus right now is a lot lower that most calculations here had atm. So the film won't be a loss in the long term, but it likely will make only a small profit.
Still good news.

[Roadblock]

430+ Million now and here's the hollywoodreporter article:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...-avoids-910268
15-20 million in the minus right now is a lot lower that most calculations here had atm. So the film won't be a loss in the long term, but it likely will make only a small profit.
Still good news.

From the article you linked with title: Box-Office Analysis: 'Warcraft' Avoids "Utter Failure" But Will Still Lose Money

• Those close to the $160 million-budgeted video game adaptation say the loss only will be about $15 million.

• Other veteran film execs put the red ink in the $30 million-$40 million range, though the higher figures don't account for an unusual deal for digital rights in China valued at $24 million, along with a flush merchandising pact there equaling $20 million, according to insiders.

• “You’re almost better off just making it for the Chinese audience,” says analyst Eric Handler of MKM Partners. “It did okay in some other markets where the game was big — including Germany and France — but China really saved the day.”

• "If China didn't end up grossing what it did, this would have been n utter failure. Now it's only a mild concussion.

• a more bullish source says there’s already a tentative plan for a follow-up, although that person agrees the budget would have to be brought down.

If that's your version of "good news", just LoL at you... oh how the mighty have fallen.
Avoiding total disaster is a win I guess for such a shitty production