2005 at the Box Office (1 Viewer)

[DavidPla]

A week before "Star Wars: Episode I". That early May slot worked before when I believe "Twister" opened big followed by "Mission: Impossible" on the Memorial Day weekend.

 

[Kevin Grey]

I would argue that these two franchises never competed. With almost a month in between openings, Harry Potter had already earned the majority of its money well before LOTR opened.

Now this season will be a bit different because Narnia is sandwiched between Harry Potter and King Kong which puts much less breathing room between each epic.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Does the 2/3 rule even apply anymore? An admittedly unscientific sampling of the franchises listed here:


http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/

shows that, in the last decade, the second movie in a series seems to be the best performer with the third movie generally dropping.

I think studios generally bank on the second movie doing better these days- with escalting production costs on a second film, 2/3 of the gross will likely only be profitable if the first film was either relatively low budget *or* grossed 250+ million.

 

[Tim Glover]

Question for TerryRL:

Revenge Of The Sith has now made $377,262,649. It's huge opening gross is hard to ignore and according to Box Office Mojo the opening was 28.7% of the total. Is that normal? Good. Bad? Seems like that percentage is lower than other event films? Look forward to reading your thoughts.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Tim, take a look at:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/weekends/

which shows the top openings of all time and the percentage that represented of the total. Of the top 10, five movies had had opening weekends that represented

 

[Tim Glover]

Thanks Kevin. Good list.

 

[Mark Hawley]

I think it's ironic that next to Jurassic Park and The Lion King, at 15%, Episode I's opening weekend is the lowest percantage of all films listed.

Despite disappointing almost everyone, the film had some amazing legs!

 

[TerryRL]

If you have a blockbuster opening ($50 million-plus), the target percentage of the opening/final tally comparison should be anything under 29%. That says that your movie had solid legs. Anything under 20% and you have a phenom (ala 'The Phantom Menace' and "Jurassic Park").

Or you could be an absolute freak of nature like "Titanic" and have your opening mark represent barely 5% of your total domestic haul.

 

[Arjan S]

Damn, Terry you sure know your stuff. I didn't think you'd be able to answer all my questions but you did. Thanks a bunch.

Now it would be interesting to know who are the A-list directors and what they make. If you know and are able to pass on the info it would be great.

 

[TerryRL]

No problem.

The A-List of Directors
(the ones who earn no less than $5 million)

Steven Spielberg $15 million

James Cameron $12 million

Robert Zemeckis $12 million

Michael Bay $10 million

Tim Burton $10 million

Chris Columbus $10 million

Roland Emmerich $10 million

Ron Howard $10 million

Peter Jackson $10 million

Wolfgang Petersen $10 million

Sam Raimi $10 million

Ridley Scott $10 million

M. Night Shyamalan $10 million

Bryan Singer $10 million

Stephen Sommers $10 million

Brett Ratner $7 million

Martin Scorsese $7 million

Quentin Tarantino $7 million

Clint Eastwood $5 million

Richard Donner $5 million

Doug Liman $5 million

McG $5 million

Jay Roach $5 million

Tony Scott $5 million

Gore Verbinski $5 million

John Woo $5 million

 

[Tim Glover]

Painful to see that Eastwood makes just $5 million and Michael Bay takes home $10 mill. Of course, along with Eastwood's 5, he takes home a few golden statutes.

 

[Rakesh.S]

Doesn't Spielberg usually make ~50-60 mill for each movie? I thought most of his deals had a fixed amount similar to what Terry states above and included a % of the gross.

I'm kind of wondering how on earth Titanic made 2 billion or whatever it made, given the state of the box office today..I mean 1 billion worldwide is tremendous these days - maybe one movie every two years gets close. On the subject of Titanic and directors, is James Cameron still alive?

I don't think I'll ever see another Titanic type box office gross in my lifetime(22 years old atm). I'm guessing The Da Vinci Code will be huge next year, since the story is so well known around the world. Would 1.5 billion be an overexaggeration of how much that movie grosses?

 

[TerryRL]

The $15 million is Spielberg's usual upfront fee. At times, he'll direct for much less in order to receive really fat backend packages. For example, his piece of "Jurassic Park" netted him about $75 million. He also took no fee to direct both "Schindler's List" and "Amistad".

Spielberg's personal net worth is $2.6 billion (the same as Donald Trump's). Spielberg is one of only two directors who are sitting on a billion dollar fortune. The other is George Lucas, who has a net worth of more than $3 billion.

 

[Kevin Grey]

I can't fathom that it would come anywhere close to that.

The DaVinci Code's performance will be interesting since the secrets of the book are so well known. Even aside from the millions of readers of the book itself there have been numerous magazine and television news mentions to the point where I doubt very many people will be surprised going into the film, particularly as the news stories are likely to heat up again just prior to the film's release.

Then there is the fact that the book is almost entirely exposition about the past which will be tough to translate on the screen without going overlong or being dull due to everybody lecturing all of the time.

I'm sure it will be big though.

 

[Malcolm R]

Books, especially popular ones, can be very hard to adapt successfully to the screen. Look at "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." It was on the bestseller lists for nearly 4 years, and the film was a huge bomb.

 

[Rakesh.S]

The Da Vinci Code is a phenomenon though -- I mean, people are actually traveling to the locations mentioned in the book and asking tour guides to show them this and that.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Bonfire of the Vanities was another book to bomb. Who was in that

The Da Vinci Code will NOT be a bomb. Maybe $200M. It won't even do Harry Potter numbers, but will be rather successful.

People in Hollywood don't get paid for qualioty, but gross. It's that simple. Gary Oldman will never be paid 35% of what Drew Barrymore is paid. That's simply a cold fact of business. Blame the audience...not the machine.

Cameron is still very much alive. He relinquished his director's fee for Titanic, but kept his writer's fee. Once it got big (and I mean BIG - WAAAAAAAY in the black), Fox decided a happy Cameron was worth a little money. Maybe Terry knows the details...I don't.

Take care,
Chuck

 

[Rakesh.S]

IMDB's profile of James Cameron indicates that he received over $200 million for Titanic when it was all said and done.

 

[Adam_ME]

And Linda Hamilton promptly received half of that.

 

[EricW]

this may be the wrong forum to ask, but does anybody here feel there's any difference in quality between 'Batman Forever' and 'Batman and Robin'? i am equally indifferent to both, so i honestly can't see why one was a smash and the other a bomb. the only explanation i can come up with is that Forever came out first and was a refreshing difference from the Burton versions. other than that, i think they're the same movie.