It's incredibly funny how people bring up tv rights and dvds and all this crap, when someone like excel was doing that for SR, people just said he's in denial and he's going to plan #2 #3 etc. Some hypocirsy?

Using the argument andaroo and such has going, i'd say almost every single movie in history turned a profit. I dont care how you wanna look at it, I think a studio would want to be successful and make a profit in all of it's forms of media, not just one or two. Andaroo, I find it funny you think that all studios want to do is break even in theaters, what they want to do is have the film be as successful as possible.

I doubt studios go " Well, lets drop 200m on this film and just hope it breaks even in theaters "

I dont even understand why some had to take it so much further, i was specifically talking about it's BO take compared to other films similar to it and people had to go on and on about how it'll make money from this and that, well no shit, I never knew all movies had other sources of profit

I think we've established that studios most likely do not say, "hey, let's spend $200 million and hope to break even" or "hey, let's spend $200 million and unrealistically expect it to break a bunch of records, even though its predecessor didn't."

How much of a an ignorant idiot do you have to be to believe that at Fox anyone hoped for a $300 million gross?

Now im an ignorant idiot because I think studios would hope to do more then just to break even. Thanks for that. I never said it had to do 300m or it's a failure.

Reply to my question first.

Yes but according to some, a movie makes ALOT of profit in a bunch of other forms of media, so more people obvioulsy saw X-2 on tv, dvd, and such so it should've did ALOT more then X-2 in theaters, right?

It's certainly deserves all the credit in the world for as much shi* the internet world gave this production and Ratner not being able to pull it off and face it: Ratner proved many of fanboys wrong and pulled it off and silenced them.. He did and really this does sort of deserve some credit for such a rumored troubled production this supposedly had.. I'll gurantee that FOX will backtrack and find a way to make X4..

It's an f'in stupid question and I never said it had to do 300m or it's a failure, or that Fox thought 300m was a lock, I said a studio should expect as much as possible with a huge budget such as Last Stand had. Why not just give it a budget similar to the first one? Why did you have to go 100m more if you thought all it would do is 230m.

To make it more clear:

Studios DO hope to break even with theatrical grosses. That is the goal. Believe it or not. You know why?

1. Because the marketing deals they get with Bruger King and whatnot and the product placement deals are worth many many many millions

2. Because these franchises they spend money on will bring them money in many many years after the release

3. Because DVD sales for a movie like this bring in $150+ million in the US alone or more.

4. Because cable rights for event movies cost up to $60-70 million.

If they manage to break even in theatres (worldwide), they are utterly happy. Besides, as mentioned above, it is common practice that during the first two weeks the studios earn more from the gross than in the later weeks. For a frontloaded movie like X3 it is perfect considering it made over $160 million in ten days. This will break even in theatres (worldwide) and even make a little profit and then earn the studio hundreds of millions outside of theatres. Is that bad? A $235 million gross is perfectly appropriate for a movie which predecessor made $215 million and the original made $157 million. You think they expected a 50% increae really? C'mon, you are not that stupid.

Uh, SM2 Made 386 Million Domestically Kill.. It made 235 Million in it's first 10 days probably..

Okay excel, with plan B, C, D.

But forget that right now, I understand what you're saying, 235m is very appropriate with the franchise, but what im saying is that you dont give the next film in the series a budget of 100m more just so you can expect another 20m. I mean am I wrong in this?

UGH! Stop playing stupid. They expected around the same the original or the immideate predecessor did. Spider-Man made $400 million, they expected around the same. Studio execs are not stupid, Kill, they have an idea of movie business in general, especially when it comes to big franchse movies like this.

X2 made $215 million. No matter how much Fox gave to X3, be it $10 million or $1 billion, they did nopt expect more than $250-260 million.

Not necessarily. The franchise has reached the point where everyone who had any interest in the film probably saw it. I mean, X2 did a major leap over X1, but that's no surprise considering how well recieved the original was and there was still room for the audience to grow. After X2 increased so much, you can't expect the same kind of increase over and over again, or else Fox should just keep makin' 'em until it breaks Titanic's gross. In reality, X3 barely increased from X2 in terms of admissions. Just a million more or so, which isn't a big jump, really.

You are asking the wrong questions. Don't ask WHY they gave it $210 million in budget. I don't know why. It did not looks $100 million more expensive. I strongly suspect it had to do with increased salaries and their wish to bring back the whole cast. It was probably a "pay up or no come" deal and they figured that they'd rather have them come back and not risk anything by having few old cast members. However its budget was, They.Did.Not.Expect.$300 million. For a movie whcih predecessor did $215 million, $235 million is a formidable gross.

An example is the last James Bon film which is widely regarded as the first truly successful James Bond movie in the US, even though it made $165 million with the budget being $142 million. Compared to the predecessors it did very well. There are just certain grosses that are good for certain movies, you have to realize that. The LOTR films cost around $100 million each...do you think if ROTK made "only" $250 million all of sudden...do you think the studio would be so happy?!

Do you think a gross of $200 million was expected for Alexander when it was grinlit with a $155+ million budget?

Yeah, I understand that. And tell me, am I wrong when I say that giving the film a budget of 100m more was not worth it and should've never gotten that high? Seeing as the film basically reached it's limit with the second one? Obviously when the studios gave the 3rd one a budget of 100m more they expected some bigger numbers then the second, you dont just give a film from it's predecessor a budget of 100m more just because, right?

I wonder if Kill realizes that every single person here disagrees with him and maybe he should rethink his position that maybe, just maybe, it's not all the people who are wrong and he is right, but vice versa.

Do you think studios just green light a movie and give it a budget of 150m because they have no faith in it and think it'll bomb? Ofcourse they thought the film was gonna be huge, they had to have much faith in it to give it such a big budget, what studios just hand out 150m here and there just for the heck of it?

Again in Last Stands case, studios dont just raise the budget 100m+ just to expect the same amount of money the predescor got.

Why not? That number would still give then several hunderds of millions in profit.

It's definitely not worth it, as the film hardly looked more expensive than X2 and the profit margin is much less. But, with budgets drastically increasing each year (we're looking at a three year gap and we had, what, three $200 million budgeted films this year?) and, like xiayun said, sometimes a film goes over budget. I mean, who knows? The original budget might have been "just" $180 million and more money was required to aquire all the stars, as Lecter said. There's tons of reasons for a larger budget, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they expect a huge jump in gross every time. Perhaps they expected something along the lines of $260-270 million, but I can't imagine them not having the common sense to know better with their expectations.

Im not saying anyone is completely wrong, im just saying that theres two sides to it. You're looking at it on the positive light, im looking at it on the negative light, both have points, neither is 100% right.

Really? I was thinking at least 35. 50 sounds interesting. I'd need to see how it held up under wider expansion. If it holds well in 200 theatres, you might not be wrong. 75 is still outright impossible though, imo.