Warner Bros. contributed only $20m to that $102m budget for Cloud Atlas. It's going to make more than $20m for WB, so they're in the black. It's not strictly a bomb for the other investors either, because it sold distribution rights to foreign markets and made its money back plus a share of the profits.

If you simply want to compare its box office to its production budget, then go ahead, it's fun to ignore all of the financials and just gauge its success based on the enormity of the budget.

Actually more than half of the movies make their budget back with DVD and home media sales but we are definitely not talking about that ofcourse. What I personally see is that John Carter is a big bomb and it should eventually make back money for studios but I am sure they would not have made the movie for just getting back the money.

Yep, they do mostly make their budgets back. But when I see people talk about budgets and what-not on forums, they are usually just concerned with if the movies have grossed enough to make their budgets back, instead of whether distribution rights to foreign markets put the studios into the black.

I'm not concerned with DVD sales and TV and homevideo because it's just a guessing game - we know nothing about how that works.

I'm fine with no incorporating everything, but I like to be aware of it with special cases like The Expendables or Cloud Atlas. When people are calling it unsuccessful or whatever, when they're not because they've already sold their distribution rights and made profit for the initial investors. For the individual buyer (in this case, the distributor; Warner Bros) you have to use only their "budget", so to speak, or invested capital, which was only $20m. When using that figure, Cloud Atlas opening to $9m looks pretty strong. That's all I was saying. I have no problem doing it the simple or more complicated way.

Considering WB will get only around half of its domestic gross, it's not strong. WoM is mediocre, it'll gross around $25 million, so....

Well, actually we're not sure just how much WB will get. It'll gain almost all of the $9m opening, but even still that has to be divided up between the other investors. WB contributed to the Cloud Atlas budget, they didn't buy it just to distribute, so WB themselves are also an investor. It's not a great opening, I admit, but it's certainly better than assuming that the budget is $102m, when in fact large portions of that have already been recouped through selling international licences.

What are you talking about?
If WB only invested 20m out of 102m, one fifth of the budget, how can they possibly get 100% of box office profits? I'm not sure how these deals work, and neither are you because we aren't studio execs in hollywood. But there's no way they receive all box office profits to compensate one/fifth of the total investment. Even if they did and you need double the budget number to start breaking even, CA is not getting to 40m total, so where's this profit coming from?

This is a huge, colossal bomb for all involved. WB might make it out okay with their deals, selling rights or whatever but they're not happy. They didn't co-invest 20m so they could barely scrape by, and the other investors just have it worse according to you.

I know it's just a minor market, but CLOUD ATLAS opened in Turkey three times better than LOOPER. If other countries follow that course, than INTL will save CA...

Just can't see it being really successful here in Germany, for instance. 600,000 admissions tops.

I agree, in my monthly predictions, I'm even lower (400,000) - but Asia could be really big for CA...

Read my post after that one.

Guys, CLOUD ATLAS has no release dates in Asia. No trailers have been shown.

Also, I honestly think given the reaction to it, that in a decade or so, it will be a "classic".

You just need a small fanbase to create that and it's normally sci-fi which finds a second life on DVD/post-theatrical run.

And no, it's not going to be like John Carter where the fans are blind.

Of course I may take this all back once I've actually seen it and find it to be more JC than Blade Runner, but for now it seems way more epic, stimulating and all that jazz.

Also it will far outstrip the pretender Prometheus which will be forgotten unless its sequels redeem themselves.

Last but not least, in relation to this topic, if it does attain such a status, WB will be raking in, just like there are with BR, which was far from a success all those years ago.

PS: Don't remember their trailers Sparrow, but Fun Size seems like a poor Project X and that cost $12m having cars and flamethrowers. This is a Nickelodeon PG-13 movie. It should have been pennies.

Re: Mavericks, last year's Soul Surfer cost $18m with Dennis Quaid and having Sophia Robb's arm either edited out of every scene. What does Mavericks boast? Lots of talk and seemingly easy shots either than the probable massive waves the fellow overcomes through the movie.

Pakistan 27th Oct
Russia 8th Nov
Kazakhstan 8th Nov
Hong Kong January
Singapore 17th Jan
Japan March

Good examples BK but if you see both those movies have about $2m difference. Plus the cast of FS, CM is slightly better than PX and SS. I think both of them are fine budget wise its just that they were huge bomb.

Cloud Atlas is also coming to China early next year.

Good find Algren. There was initially reports of having sold rights to dozens of countries but release dates never turned up.

Now it could be a loss for the distributors if they don't show it, but having such random, scattered and few releases normally means it hasn't been decided and it may not even show up.

I think you're probably correct, especially in the markets that just show a month and no date. The only ones that will lose out are the local distributors, and depending on how small they are, we may never get to see numbers because not all distribs choose to report.

I am sure Cloud Atlas will eventually get released but it might not see a big push. Also not all local distributors are good at selling a movie. I think a lot of them are waiting to see if the movies has any Awards buzz (which was the initial thought given the cast) but I think that is a flawed strategy in this case.

Definitely is.

$31m FLIGHT
$15m IRON FISTS

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/en ... 0200.story

I'm very surprised by FLIGHT's budget - should be the cheapest Robert Zemeckis film (inflation adjusted) since his first two movies I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND and USED CARS...

I read in Entertainment Weekly that both Zemeckis and Washington took dramatic pay-cuts to get it filmed, so that seems about right.

Flight is going to make a huge profit.

Yeah I am also surprised by Flight's number. It will turn into profit from its domestic gross itself.

TMWIF is okish. Don't think it will even out in domestic market itself but OS numbers will save it for sure.

It cost $15m, of course it will be recouped by the US market. It'll make $25m at least, and most of that will come in the opening few weeks when studios take home more of the gross. So the $15m is easy to recoup.

Iron Fists is not guaranteed to make $25m.