MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Discussion > It's a FLOP. The movie is gonna lose mon...

It's a FLOP. The movie is gonna lose money.

posted 5 years ago by kuku (3510)
46 replies | jump to latest

Let's do some math.

The official budget was $275 million, but the movie has been reshot to death. As a rule of thumb, massive reshoots increase the budget about %50 (case of World War Z, for example). The real budget should be around $400 million, probably more.

Worldwide marketing. As a rule of thumb, it sums as much as the official budget. Let's be conservative and say $250 million.

With a $650 million cost, you need about $1.3 billion only to break even.

The movie has right now a $800 million box office. It'll probably reach the billion, but not the number required to break even.

It's a flop. It's not gonna make it.

EDIT Companies get roughly 50% of box office, average. That means that if you wanna pay back the 650M, you should make 650M x 2 = 1.3B, that's the break even.

[–] Sandman81 (1510) 5 years ago

Lets now try some math with more accurate numbers.

We'll go with your $275 million budget, though I've seen closer to $200. Though this movie was not RESHOT to death. According to Adrams, it was significantly less than TFA. So to think they spent $125 million on reshoots is asinine. But I'll be generous and say $80. Bringing the total to $375.

https://collider.com/star-wars-rise-of-skywalker-reshoots-jj-abrams/

Then for marketing, Disney has always had the strategy of spending less on marketing Star Wars, because frankly they realized the movies didn't need to be marketed that much. Just tell the fans when the movie is coming out, and we'll be there. Again, I'll be generous and say $175.

https://fortune.com/2015/12/08/star-wars-marketing/

So that makes the total cost $550. But here is part where you're most off. Disney is leveraging movie theaters into paying higher rates. For TLJ they demanded 65%, and in some cases it could go up to 70%.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-lays-down-the-law-for-theaters-on-star-wars-the-last-jedi-1509528603

https://qz.com/1479408/small-theater-chains-worry-a-mid-century-rule-is-all-that-stands-between-them-and-extinction/

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/disney-is-forcing-theaters-to-agree-to-top-secret-terms-in-order-to-show-star-wars-2017-11-01

So that makes the more accurate break even number at ($550 x 1.65) $907.5 million. Which it will have by the end of this weekend.

But if you still insist on using your inaccurate budget number the break even is $975 million. Which it will also pass.

[–] fc31 (5851) 5 years ago

It looks like big studios have a lot more pricing power than average film makers. But Disney having so much market power is still a surprise.

Do you know the percentage of international box office Disney is getting?

[–] fc31 (5851) 5 years ago

But now I understand why Disney is perceived getting much less in China (I still don't know whether that is true or not). Star wars, and Disney in general, was never that big of a franchise in China.

[–] kuku (3510) 5 years ago

• "We'll go with your $275 million budget, though I've seen closer to $200. "

I took the number from wikipedia. Anyway, a $200 budget is ridiculous. Rogue One had a $250m budget, and Solo more than $300m. And you're saying that the final chapter of the trilogy was gonna be cheaper than the spin-offs. Sure. 😂

• "Though this movie was not RESHOT to death. According to Adrams, it was significantly less than TFA. [...] I'll be generous and say $80."

Wrong. The movie has been reshot to death. Every leak agreed about that.

• "Disney has always had the strategy of spending less on marketing Star Wars, because frankly they realized the movies didn't need to be marketed that much."

That could have been true for Force Awakens, not here. Star Wars and Disney's image have been deteriorating. Marketing was necessary.

• "Disney is leveraging movie theaters into paying higher rates. For TLJ they demanded 65%, and in some cases it could go up to 70%."

Before The Last Jedi everybody thought Star Wars was going to be the next big thing. Force Awakens is the top domestic box office ever (even above Avengers Endgame). That gave them leverage. Right now, after the Last Jedi disappointment, the Solo flip-flop and the Rise of the Skywalker messy 'let's do another cut' production, they didn't have that leverage anymore. Look for any piece of news saying how Disney squeezed movie theaters this xmas. There's none.

[–] CoachGainz (453) 5 years ago

Oh please! There is no way this movie is going to lose money. Sure it's possibly the worst thing released since transformers 5 but it's going to make bookuu bucks.

1. Reshoots are budgeted into almost every movie. it's just recently that news thinks they can get hits by posting "drama".

2. 275M is probably reasonably close to cost. Since we have no better source that's what we have to go on. Disney has stated they tried to keep the episodes down to 250m each and the spins-offs around 175M. Obviously they had extenuating circumstances on Solo so they were unable to keep that in line but the claim seems to stand. Most Tent-pole epic movies are in the 250-300M range these days. No way they spent 400M on the production alone( That would make it more expensive than the Justice League fiasco).

3. Marketing is typically 50-100% of the budget pending on the size of the budget. Obviously smaller movies are the closer side of 100% since you need 20-50M marketing just to have a wide release. But yes 250M is probably accurate even tho I would argue there was less marketing for this than any of the previous SW movie save Solo.

4. Disney Makes 100% of it's opening weekend in the US and 20% less each week. That means even in week 3 they are taking 60% of the DOM BO. Meaning they damn near made there production budget back opening weekend. Add in the worldwide gross opening weekend.

5. All in all Disney reasonably spent roughly 500M on this movie. They have grossed 900+M in the first 2 weeks. I would be shocked if Disney isn't taking 600M of that home. That means they are already 100M in the green after 2 weeks of release. Once it's all said and done it's going to be closer to 500M

6. Solo cost 275M plus marketing and only grossed 400M WW. That movie reportedly only lost the studio 80M.

[–] peterkneter (385) 5 years ago

ontforget all the licences sold for toys and games to be released afterwards that will gain more money.

[–] CoachGainz (453) 5 years ago

Oh for sure! All kinds of post theater run money to be made. Shoot, Disney is spending 50-100M on Disney+ straight to streaming movies that won't make a dime of Rental, DVD, TV right or merchandising money much less the all powerful first run BO.

How could anybody believe that a 300M budget movie that grosses over a Billion would lose money!? If that were the case there wouldn't be a movie business.

[–] Sandman81 (1510) 5 years ago

The previous post beat me too it, but reshoots are done on every big budget movie, especially action movies with lots of special effects. Studios plan for them and include them in the budget. So unless there's a major calamity during production (like changing directors) reshoots don't dramatically change the production cost of a movie. The $275 million that you saw on Wikipedia, lol, probably included most, if not all of the reshoots cost.

And the only sources that I have seen that indicated his movie had heavy reshoots was a Reddit article, and something called "DoomCock".

Disney took close to 40% of the total box office for the year. They can get whatever percentage they want from theaters, regardless of what the previous Star Wars movies did.

I loved how you tried to argue facts, but didn't offer anything to support your points, except for Wikipedia.

[–] peterkneter (385) 5 years ago

The Irishman is a flop. 160 million budget and quite nothing in the box office.

[–] kuku (3510) 5 years ago

The Irishman is a TV movie. Probably the best movie of the year, but still a TV movie.

[–] CoachGainz (453) 5 years ago

Doesn't exclude it from financial analysis.

Also, it's not a "TV Movie" it was a movie made by Netflix that was given a theater run and entered for film award ceremonies. Please don't compare IM to Hallmark.