All right, as weekends come and go, these words are often thrown around. But what exactly do they mean. As we all know, although many old schoolers will like to admit it, International numbers and DVD sales have exploded over the last 5-10 years meaning that domestic grosses have gone from accounting to nearly 75% of profits to almost 40% with International many times the same and even more, and DVD sales are many times accounting for 20-30% in most cases.

So I think it is important to try and get some sort of bearing on what exactly these words mean. I suppose the best way to look at it is from a budget/gross ratio. The easiest way to look at it is to use an example. We will use an average blockbuster budget of 100 million dollars. Now we all know what a blockbuster is, so there is no need to go into it.

So lets talk about a hit. For a film to be considered a hit, it must make 90-100%+ of its budget back on the domestic front. It is a given that even if it fails to meet its budget here, it will often times make double or even triple on its domestic gross on International and DVD sales. In such a case a film that costs 100 million. Makes 90 million domestically, 90 million internationally, and about 50-100 million from DVD sales clearly passes what it would need to be considered a hit, which would be about 195 million, since it has been stated that a Studio keeps 55% of what a movie makes in theaters. though what it makes from DVD sales is less known, it has to be at least 25%.

Dissapointments are the best of the worst things to get. It is easily explained that a film makes money back, but not nearly as much as originally expected. For most cases a film is expected to make a lot, but in fact only makes about 75-90% of its budget on the domestic front. We see these often times. For Example a film cost 100 million and was expected to make 100 million, but ultimately grosses in the 80 million range. When you deal with that as making that on average 75-85 million Internationally, and at least 50-70 million in DVD sales, We are looking at a gross 205+. Ultimately the film still is considered a win for the studio, but would not cause a party.

Flops are interesting because this is where many people often get confused. What exactly is a flop. A flop is considered a film that would ultimately either break even, or fall short of it by about 10%. For example, using a film that costs 100 million to make, would ultimately need to make 195 million to break even. In the end A movie that costs abou 100 million only makes about 45-75% of its budget back domestically. In the end the film makes 55 million here, about 55 million internationally and in many times makes more on DVD then in either region, so we will give it 65-75 million. that would have it fall short at about 10 million. In this case, the flop is the best way to describe a bust for studios. It falls short of expectations, and usually either turns a very small profit, or a small enough lost that is easily overcome by othe films of that year.

Now lets talk about the word so commonly thrown around. Bombs Bombs are best described as films that will fall completely below expectations, and will loose money for the studio even taking into account International and DVD and all that good stuff. Although depending on the amount lost, the film will eventually be recouped from other successes of the year. Bombs many times only occure a few times a year now. From research a bomb constitues if it makes under 40% of its domestic gross and fall more than 20% from breaking even. A film that makes 40 million here, 40 million overseas, end even though DVD is often times much bigger than theatrical, it will still fall short, give in an average of 50 million and we still have fallen 25 million short of hitting 195 million.

Now granted these are for the most part averages, In fact many times today international and DVD films can turn bombs into hits. For example, lets look at some of the bigger hits of the year.
X3 and Pirates both cost 225 million to make, meaning that they both needed about 440 million to break even. In both cases they are making that theatrically, and will ultimately make a killing on DVD respectively. Add into that Merchandising, especially for Xmen, always a good toy seller, and you are looking at easily the two biggest hits of the year.

Now lets move to the big topic of the year, WB, Posidon is easily a flop as it cost 160 million and only looks to pull in about 180 million WW. However, it does have the advantage of being the perfect DVD, and should be able to pull in at least 90 million.

Superman, although many people like to call it a bomb, is a disappointment. Although its budget is 260 million, 45 million is from earlier projects over the last 10 years. Its a big note that that 45 million has most likely already been paid for from its earlier years. using supermans budget at about 215 million, it needed about 430 million to break even. Something it will come very close to hitting theatrically. Much like Poseidon, and more like X3 a 100 million+ gross on DVD domestically is very much ensured. Although it will clearly make WB a lot of money, I feel that they were expecting closer to a 500-600 million WW gross for Superman. However, a sequel is still very much understandable and should be done.

As of now, I dont really think their has been a single bomb this year, as Poseidon and Miami Vice and even the Ant Bully look to fall in the flop/ Disappointment area when all is said and done.

Hits to mean mean either reaching near or surpassing your budget or doing much better than expected. For example, Mean Girls, people were expecting a run much more like 14/45 than its actually of 24/88.

Dissappointments are easy because to me its only when films do bad in terms of expectations. Like Superman, most or some were expecting 250 or atleast 200 already but it will gross less and while still a good run it is dissappointing.

Films that dont reach about 60% of their budget are flops. While bombs would be a film that completely falls apart, either high budget or high profile failure. Like Super Ex Girlfriend is a flop but the Island is a bomb.

I agree completely, Im just tired of people throwing the words around so much, because many times they dont know what the words mean. I figured this topic has never really been tackled, and it really needs to.

some could say that movie expected to make $300 total, and only makes $200 is a bomb/disappointment

I would say that that's a dissappointment. It is not a bomb or even a flop. Like King Kong for example many were expecting so much more after the LOTRs did soo well. Its average prediction was probably over 300m but it did way less but still was a good success but not at the level people expected it to be at.

The biggest problem is that Personal Opinions are what affect this view the most, when in fact the studios almost make money on probably 90% of their films a year at least.

I mean, if almost every big budget film was a bomb as most people said, I think movies would have gone out a while ago.

thats true because most movies do in the end make their money back because studios get money from so many places that people dont know about

For me SR is a dissapointment at the domestic b.o, not a flop but i expected it to do much much better.

and fanboys living in their dreamworld giving out crazy predictions, and then they seem all disappointed when their beloved film does 'ok'.

But...but, if you want to be consistent about the vocabulary, we'd have to calculate whether a film is profitable or not. We'd all have to go to BOM to look up the budget and domestic gross, WW gross, and probably go find marketing costs and DVD sales, and then add it up in some formula to arrive at a percentage to which we can apply the proper terminology. Dude. That's, like, work. It's easier -- and much more fun -- to whip off the term lightly, and then fight the ensuing flame war.

That's a very nice analysis Gun. And I look at it like this. If movies cost so much to make these days and studios are constantly losing money with their films, then why do they keep making them? Why do guys like Denzel and women like Nicole Kidman make 15-20 mill a movie? Why was Stallone up until a few years ago? The answer is that they have to be generating enough business to justify these salaries. So there must be more money being generated that we know. So studios must get a shit load of money from DVD sales or TV rights and so on. Do you know that Cold Mountain is on TV already? COLD FUCKING MOUNTAIN. That came out in 2003. That is unheard of. It used to take years before films came to the small screen. Now its two years. They must pay a tidy sum to broadcast the film. So all in all, we may never know when a film becomes profitable.

TV rights alone for the LotR are something like $75M, and that deal was negotiated just after FotR was released, not even taking the blockbuster TTT and RotK into account.

And a lot of money comes from pre-production foreign rights. When New Line made LotR, they shopped the trilogy overseas and sold the rights to show the movie before it was even made. They raised almost the entire budget, then used the money to make the movies. Even if all three bombed entirely, New Line was liable for something like $30M, but don't quote me on that.

Bob Shaye killed Freddy Krueger's integrity by turning him into Jerry Lewis and that is the only thing I dislike about him. He is a shrewd business man and his negotiation skills are second to none.

Exactly, for many films, all of those promotional tie ins also pay for help defray a lot of the costs of the budget before they were even released. You people do realize that in something that isnt a period piece. And a guy pays a suit, you see a car, stop at a restaurant, have appliances, drink water, plug something in the film, its something that those companies pay for in return for the subliminal plug inside the film.

Who knows how much each thing costs.

Im kinda bored, maybe Ill go through some of the data, and see some of the profits I can find. It could end up being a good topic for a college presentation.