They made less money than last quarter, though I think they beat expectations. I don't care about any of that, this is the paragraph which has blown my mind.
This is the first quarter in which we have recorded film revenue, primarily relating to our feature film “The Marine”. Our capitalized feature film production asset balance is amortized in proportion with the recognition of revenue. As a result, we have amortized approximately $10.0 million of feature film assets, yielding approximately $2.8 million in profit contribution for feature films.
Am I reading that right? Did WWE actually make money on The Marine? That seems totally impossible (though less impossible than See No Evil or the Condemned.
Originally posted by thecubsfanAm I reading that right? Did WWE actually make money on The Marine? That seems totally impossible (though less impossible than See No Evil or the Condemned.
Seems like the kind of movie that makes a killing on rentals. Would that account for some profit?
"To be the man, you gotta beat demands." -- The Lovely Mrs. Tracker
Well, if you go by boxofficemojo.com, The Marine grossed $21.9M worldwide, plus an additional $30.5M in DVD/home video (as of 4/29/07 - maybe somebody can find more up to date info?).
As comparison, See No Evil grossed $34.7M combined (DVD/home video as of 1/21/07), and The Condemned grossed $25.7M (DVD/home video as of 10/28/07).
Maybe somebody more in tune w/ the movie industry can provide a little analysis on these numbers.
According to IMDBPro the film cost $15 million to make. I don't know if that includes marketing or not. But if that's the case it should have come out in the black by the end of it's worldwide theatrical run.
If have an IMDBPro account you can see the movie here:
Originally posted by thecubsfanAm I reading that right? Did WWE actually make money on The Marine? That seems totally impossible (though less impossible than See No Evil or the Condemned.
(edited by thecubsfan on 1.11.07 1125)
Don't doubt the drawing power of Robert "T-1000" Patrick!
And yes, had "See No Evil" and "The Condemned" come out making a profit, it would be yet another sign of the coming Apocalypse.
This all, of course, means there will be more WWE movies coming our way. Get ready for the Triple H "Conan"-style action film, the Undertaker horror film, the Bobby Lashley blaxploitation film, the Great Khali "Longest Yard" spin-off, and of course, John Cena starring in "The Marine 2: They Just Can't See Me".
And as much as I kid, someone at WWE Films deserves a raise. These could have been big budget bombs, but someone realized that the movies would probably make the same amount of money regardless of the budget. Someone decided to make a low-budget film and try and sell these movies on name-value and it's actually working. At least, for now. Good for them.
I believe the expectations were that the Marine and See No Evil would eventually be profitable, while there was no plausible scenario where The Condemned would make its money back (hence the writedown).
However, the Condemned could still be profitable; they might have just tried some earnings management. The quarter that it was written down in was the Wrestlemania quarter, so the loss wasn't as perceptable. (I think the XFL loss was timed similarly.) Now if the Condemned starts being successful at rental, it can show up as income on later quarters that need the help, with less success needed to start recognizing revenue. This also suggests that they had good reason to expect profit for Marine & See No Evil, because otherwise they would have done the same for them. Expect See No Evil to be profitable in the next quarter.
Originally posted by thecubsfanAm I reading that right? Did WWE actually make money on The Marine? That seems totally impossible (though less impossible than See No Evil or the Condemned.
Seems like the kind of movie that makes a killing on rentals. Would that account for some profit?
That doesn't mean jack.
They only see the revenue of the actual DVD sale. If I buy one copy of The Marine (if I still managed a video store) and then rented that copy out 100 times at $2.99, no one sees that $299 in revenue other than the video store. They already paid their distributor for their copy of the DVD.
So when you read that movie X made revenue Y, all that means is the video stores made a killing on rental and all the studio can hope for is that some of those rentals turn into sales when they buy new copies from some place other than a rental shop (if you buy used from anywhere, the studio still sees zero revenue from the sale).
-- 2006 Time magazine Person of the Year -- "Let me see if I can get inside his mouth." -- Michael Wilbon on PTI August 28, 2007
Originally posted by thecubsfanAm I reading that right? Did WWE actually make money on The Marine? That seems totally impossible (though less impossible than See No Evil or the Condemned.
Seems like the kind of movie that makes a killing on rentals. Would that account for some profit?
That doesn't mean jack.
They only see the revenue of the actual DVD sale. If I buy one copy of The Marine (if I still managed a video store) and then rented that copy out 100 times at $2.99, no one sees that $299 in revenue other than the video store. They already paid their distributor for their copy of the DVD.
So when you read that movie X made revenue Y, all that means is the video stores made a killing on rental and all the studio can hope for is that some of those rentals turn into sales when they buy new copies from some place other than a rental shop (if you buy used from anywhere, the studio still sees zero revenue from the sale).
You are both right, actually.
A title like this, is expected to do better on Video/DVD so the rental store (Blockbuster/Hollywood Video/Movie Gallery being the top three) will only purchase a few copies and lease the rest of them.
An example of this is Blockbusters deal with Miramax Films for exclusive rights to some of thier films. Blockbuster knows they aren't gonna be able to sell off a few hundred copies of THE QUEEN per store, but it will rent well for about a month. What they do is 'rent' (or lease) the DVD from Miramax/Disney and they get exclusive copies of the DVD for a few months. They are also able to slap those stickers that say they'll always have a copy on hand because they've got about 500 copies of it.
The two companies split the rental profits and blockbuster ends up keeping like 20 or 30 copies per store 2 or 3 for the Drama section and they PVS (Previously Viewed Sales) the rest of the copies, then the unload all the rest back to Miramax/Disney.
This allows for a profit sharing program where the rental company isn't stuck with hundreds of thousands of copies of a DVD that will sit there on the shelf after a couple months when everyone has seen it already. The copies that get returned are then sold through other stores as second hand product. Try looking in Walgreens and Costco for the dump bins full of them, usually priced at $10 or 2 for $20.
I am almost sure "See No Evil" made money. It had a worldwide gross of over $18 million, with production costs only being $8 million. Obviously there are other expenses, but there are also DVD sales. The project on the whole almost certainly turned a small profit.
(edited by ges7184 on 1.11.07 1824) The Bored are already here. Idle hands are the devil's workshop. And no... we won't kill dolphins. But koalas are fair game.
Worldwide markets being what they are, and especially if you factor in DVD sales at home and abroad, it is practically impossible for a film not to make a profit these days.
Is it just me or should the DVD just contain every world title change in the company history? That's what a "History of The WWE Championship" means. The WWF did a version of this on vhs some years ago.
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