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Originally Posted by JuiceMonkey
Big film studios can't afford to invest the money into advertising? I mean it could also do a backfire, like with internet piracy and internet advertising. They will have to use their budget to advertise the movie over and over again. Especially with top 500 type sites (imdb etc..) they lose all of the non north american markets. They could just do a LUMP sum marketing campaign (across all the countries of distro), and then invest the lump sum of profit and make more intrest. I don't see the benefit of the system you have provided.. unless it was an indy or small film. Aeonflux was a fairly big budget flop as well. Especially the word of mouth and *buzz* factors that you get from talking to family over sea/friends etc.. the benefits are endless.
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Remember that the studios aren't making all the money. Don't get me wrong but the studios are a small (but important) part of the picture.
The average film, and this is a fact, will break even on the silver screen. This is usually due to the fact that most of the marketing is paid for during the theatrical releases. DVD and home distribution as well as merchandising is the profitable link in the movie industry. Almost all the money made in theatrical releases are rolled into marketing for the DVD home markets and rentals.
Last year's films released here (USA) made about $9b at the box office, $30b was make on DVD and other ancillary revenue. Of the $30b, $10b was from Walmart! Last year Warner Brothers made 60% of all it's revenue from Walmart alone.
One of the reasons they market so heavily to such an unprofitable market is because the impact of the marketing rolls over to the home and rental markets.
That being said, when a Aeonflux spent $55m filming the movie, of that there was maybe $10+m in marketing to the USA. Out of that, it has only grossed $25,857,987 (actual numbers) from the US. Lakeshore Entertainment (the production company) sold distribution to Paramount Pictures which is taking 50-66% of the revenue from the movie (depending on how much Paramount Pictures put into marketing vs Lakeshore Entertainment). International grosses are as follows:
1-06-2006 - Europe Market = $1,618,731
1-06-2006 - Spain Market = $1,468,288
2-24-2006 - UK Market = £961,020
2-24-2006 - South Africa = $243,604
More than likely Paramount resold the film to other distributors who could do better in those markets. The other factor is the fact that you have to "sell" your film to the theaters. So local distributors are good if you need help getting the film into the theaters. This all takes money and a piece of the pie.
So that being said........would you want to invest MORE money than you had to in that movie?
I'm sure with a film on that tight budget, they are having a hard time selling it to markets, but they realize that the film will become profitable in the home and DVD rental fields. But it's a waiting game.
In fact, the highest return on investment for a movie are the ones that go straight to DVD. Dirty Love with Jenny McCathy and Carmen Electra hit #2 on Blockbuster's best seller's list. Turned into a nice investment for their investors because they played their cards right made millions in a short amount of time. Cudos to them.
If you haven't rented Dirty Love, do it. Or look for it at Walmart...