the scary calculations involving getting Serenity to profit

POSTED BY: ethan
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 3, 2006 20:01
VIEWED: 19463
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ETHAN

Sunday, January 1, 2006 4:14 PM

I like to be as positive as the next person about getting Serenity to profitability. But after talking to a friend in the film industry, I realized that may be far more difficult than I originally thought. Consider the following.

Serenity made about 35 million USD worldwide. Theaters keep roughly half the box office receipts. So that leaves about 17.5 mil for Universal.

DVD sales average 9 dollars in profit for the studios, but 20% of that profit is distributed to actors and film crew as royalties. Big name stars and directors sometimes leverage higher royalty rates but I don't think this is the case with Serenity. Rounding down, Universal will pocket 7 dollars for every DVD sold.

If Serenity cost 40 million to make (let's just assume marketing is included)then after it's theatrical run it was still 22.5 million USD in the red. At the rate of 7 bucks profit per Serenity DVD, roughly 3.3 million units will have to be sold before Universal breaks even on original production. We don't even know how much was spent on additional marketing for the DVD.

My friend conjectures Serenity will in the end need to earn at least 30 million in pure profits just to even trigger consideration for a sequel. That's another 4.4 million dvds.

All told, 7.7 million DVD's have to be sold for us to hope for a sequel. If Browncoat's ever needed to get the impossible done, now's the time...

WHOISRIVER

Sunday, January 1, 2006 4:19 PM

It's actually slightly worse than that, heh. Marketing for the movie wasn't included in the initial production budget, nor was distribution (prints).

Prints alone is into the millions, and marketing (all those TV adverts on Lost etc) is again well, well into the millions.

Plus, some of the international releases will have lost money due to poor box office - France and Germany as two examples.

Don't get me wrong, eventually I think it'll turn a profit, but not for a good few years. For a sequel to be considered, the DVD sales need to be blistering hot for a good period of time - and that hasn't happened.

-- gossi

CHRISTHECYNIC

Sunday, January 1, 2006 4:35 PM

The day that I am the voice of optimism is a scary day indeed, thankfully it isn't this day. However I think we all need to remember something, something someone said to me today on a completely different topic.

Most of the time when someone does the impossible it's because no one told them it was. If we accept the fact that what we want is impossible, or decide that we have already failed than we will be right, and it will fail. On the other hand if we have insane and illogical hope or faith that it can be done (and act on that) then there is a very slim possibility that it will be done.

I’ll take what I can get, very slim is good enough for now.

Also, I still have faith, we fight lost causes, we gathered together on a show that died. Firefly did die, Serenity wasn't even in Joss' mind yet. We had faith that something could be done in spite of the total absurdity of that idea. We acted on that faith, and it worked.

Some of us were here before, others came later, but we all share something very simple: We are here because a group of people, us, was irrational to an extreme, and it paid off.

Now is not the time for rational thought.

(How the hell did I come the point where I would say that?)

CBY

Sunday, January 1, 2006 4:41 PM

"France and Germany as two examples."

They had to know that. Nobody has been able to see Firefly in German tv yet, the DVD box has been released in November '05 (!) just weeks before the movie hit the screens. That cheap strategy just doesn't work in countries with severe economical problems where nobody likes to buy a pig in a poke.

°°°°°°°°°°°°
http://www.byond-trax.com - my selfmade ambient/lounge/chillout music

WHOISRIVER

Sunday, January 1, 2006 4:47 PM

In fairness, Firefly had not aired on a major UK TV channel, but it opened #1 here. If you open a movie like The Matrix, you don't expect people to know anything about it in advance. That is what movie promotion is about - you make people who don't know about something want to see it. A majority of Serenity's audience won't have even known what Firefly is.

The fact is, the promotion didn't work in Germany (and France had very little promotion).

-- gossi

TINFOIL

Sunday, January 1, 2006 5:04 PM

Another thing that needs to be considered here: profit is good, investment is better. If Universal is convinced that Firefly/Serenity is a growing franchise, there's also a chance for more "stuff" down the line. Realistically, we should have never got a movie. Realistically, we should have never got a small comic run. Realistically, we shouldn't even be caring what happens next for a failed TV show that aired oh so many years ago. If you have fans demanding more and they keep demanding more, someone will put out a product for the fans.

If you ask me, we need do so something to show Universal how many fans are actually out there. Let them know we're ready to buy Firefly/Serenity related stuff. In short, if we can show someone there's profit in the future, then it's not about Serenity making money, it's about Serenity making fans.

CBY

Sunday, January 1, 2006 5:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by WhoIsRiver:
the promotion didn't work in Germany (and France had very little promotion).

-- gossi

wikipedia.com about Germany: A major issue of concern remains the persistently high unemployment rate and weak domestic demand which slows down economic growth .

When Matrix was released 6 years ago we didn't care much of this problems, now we are in the middle of them.

It's not just Serenity - "King Kong" is not a great success either and "Harry Potter IV" falls short of one's expectations as well. Both had a comparatively huge promotion behind them but it didn't help much.

°°°°°°°°°°°°
http://www.byond-trax.com - my selfmade ambient/lounge/chillout music

WHOISRIVER

Sunday, January 1, 2006 5:08 PM

Yuhu, agreed. Still, it grossed about $1m in Germany I think, which I suspect won't be enough to cover the promotion (although hopefully I'm wrong!).

CBY

Sunday, January 1, 2006 5:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by WhoIsRiver:
Yuhu, agreed. Still, it grossed about $1m in Germany I think, which I suspect won't be enough to cover the promotion (although hopefully I'm wrong!).

You're right. I didn't want to argue about the figures anyway, I just don't like the notion "The Germans/French are responsible"

°°°°°°°°°°°°
http://www.byond-trax.com - my selfmade ambient/lounge/chillout music

GROOSALUGG

Sunday, January 1, 2006 5:36 PM

I agree with TinFoil on this one. I don't believe that getting the film out of the red is the thing that's going to instantly trigger a sequel - I think it's about showing the studio that there's potential growth in the franchise. Sure, selling 7.7 million DVDs would be great, but even more important than that, let's just aim to outsell whatever Uni's projections for it are. Let's make 'em sit down a few months from now and say, "Wow, we didn't expect it to sell THAT many copies..."

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