WARCRAFT - Drums, Horns, Strings... WAR is coming! (NO Spoilers)

[VivaChiba]

What’s the % cut that cinema houses/distributors take?

Between 30-50%; it depends, nation-by-nation (the UK takes 50%).

DVD sales: retailers take around 50% of the price consumers pay.

TV: 100% of the sale goes to the seller (usually the distributor with selling rights in that particular region).

Distributors: for independent films, distributors firstly reclaim all adertising costs before the producer/s see a penny, this is why it's best to get a healthy advance from the distributor (falsely recognised as a "sale"). NOTE: always get a maximum spending cap in the contract or distributors can legally claim that the film made a loss; if a distributor cites a $1m advertising maximum spend in the contract, strike off that first $1m if you're a producr because you won't see any of it - distributors may (not saying all will, but still...) show spending receipts equalling $1m even if that much has not been spent on your film (not even including staff wages).
After all expenses have been covered, the distributor usually shares profit with the producer/s @ 50%.

Total:

Film costs $1m to make
Distributor "buys" film @ $1m (producer breaks even)
Advertising max' spend @ $1m
Cinema sales = $3m
DVD sales = $500,000
Other sales (i.e. cable, airlines, TV, on-demand, etc.) = $1m

$3 / 2 = 1.5
+ 0.5m / 2 = 0.25
+ 1
$2.75m
- $1m advance from distributor
- $1m advertising
0.75 / 2 (with distributor)
Producer's profit (using the above mentioned details of $1m to make + $1m advance to break even) = 375,000

From this point on, investors need to be take profit share and producer/s need to pay actors+crew according to their "points"... it gets tricky from here on in, so it's best that the producer gets a healthy figure up front for producing the film, so that he/she's been paid already and doesn't have to survive on whatever remains from the profits.

Anyway, that's how independent films tend to work - I honestly can't speak about big Hollywood studios with their own distribution arms, but I hope that this gives you a better understanding.

[Midvillian1322]

So i said i wasnt gonna see this till redbox but my nephew wanted to see it. So i thought visualy it was amazing, story wise it was ok at best. I cant even remember half the characters names. The only character arc i ended up caring about was Duradans(Spelling?). The actor who plays Ragnar on vikings felt like he was playing the same character with nicer armor. Ben fosters line delivery was cheesy at times but also really good at others so he was a mixed bag. Paula Patton and Dominic Cooper were enjoyable but Duradan was the only standout for me.


I know nothing about WoW but I assume Durotans son is an important charatcer to the lore cause they spent alot of time setting up things for the future with that kid. Him and the bald dude were minor but got alot of focus.

[Guardian]

I know nothing about WoW but I assume Durotans son is an important charatcer to the lore cause they spent alot of time setting up things for the future with that kid. Him and the bald dude were minor but got alot of focus.

I'll put it in a spoiler tag:

spoilers:

The bald Orc is called Orgrim Doomhammer. In the lore he will become the leader (Warchief) of the Orcs. He will lead them to a few nice victories but he will ultimately die and the Orcs will lose the first war. Most of the Orcs will be rounded up by the humans and put into internment camps and they will lose all their "bloodlust". They will just sit around and be depressed for a long time. The kid will grow up in such a camp and he will be trained to fight as a gladiator for a human admiral, I forgot his name, I guess it was Blackwater or something like that. Said admiral has bigger plans for the orc Gladiator who was given the name "Thrall" by the humans. He wants him to lead his human army against the alliance of humans because he is power hungry. So this admiral is a really bad guy and wants to betray his fellow humans. Thrall finally fights back, breaks of his chains and ultimately kills the admiral. He rounds up all the imprisoned Orcs and goes to a barren land he will name "Durotar", after his fathers name Durotan. And there he builds the new capital for the orcish Horde. This city will be called "Orgrimmar", named after the great warchief Orgrim Doomhammer. And now he builds up the Horde (other races will join the Horde like the Trolls or the Tauren) and they will be in an everlasting war with the Alliance. This part of history can be experienced in the game World of Warcraft.

end of spoilers

[simbob4000]

Generally, the marketing is equal to the production cost, so if the film cost $160 million to create, it would need to make at least $320 million to break even; however if the reported gross cost (production + marketing) is $260 million, why would it need to make $700 million to break even? What’s the % cut that cinema houses/distributors take?

Generally the marketing isn't exactly the same as the production cost.

[Carabas]

Generally the marketing isn't exactly the same as the production cost.

But it tends to be roughly in the same ballpark...

[simbob4000]

But it tends to be roughly in the same ballpark...

Kind of. I mean, if your movie cost $160 million, you might be talking $100 million...maybe A bit more, but not the exact same thing as the budget. I really hope people saying this all the time here isn't because years ago I would talk about it being an easy rule of thumb measurement. Because when I would talk about that I didn't mean it actually meant the marketing and production budgets were exactly the same like I've seen some people say something like in the last year or so here.

[regnak]

The marketing is usually a % of the production budget but not 100%. That would be insane, if you had a movie with a $250 million budget you would need to make a billion just to break even and not even the most pessimistic estimates claimed that for BvS.(the most debated movie of that budget IIRC)

[steve2275]

i enjoyed this movie

[daisetsu100]

I'll put it in a spoiler tag:

spoilers:

The bald Orc is called Orgrim Doomhammer. In the lore he will become the leader (Warchief) of the Orcs. He will lead them to a few nice victories but he will ultimately die and the Orcs will lose the first war. Most of the Orcs will be rounded up by the humans and put into internment camps and they will lose all their "bloodlust". They will just sit around and be depressed for a long time. The kid will grow up in such a camp and he will be trained to fight as a gladiator for a human admiral, I forgot his name, I guess it was Blackwater or something like that. Said admiral has bigger plans for the orc Gladiator who was given the name "Thrall" by the humans. He wants him to lead his human army against the alliance of humans because he is power hungry. So this admiral is a really bad guy and wants to betray his fellow humans. Thrall finally fights back, breaks of his chains and ultimately kills the admiral. He rounds up all the imprisoned Orcs and goes to a barren land he will name "Durotar", after his fathers name Durotan. And there he builds the new capital for the orcish Horde. This city will be called "Orgrimmar", named after the great warchief Orgrim Doomhammer. And now he builds up the Horde (other races will join the Horde like the Trolls or the Tauren) and they will be in an everlasting war with the Alliance. This part of history can be experienced in the game World of Warcraft.

end of spoilers

thank you for this summary. but didnt know thats all in wow (i only played till RoC)

[Guardian]

thank you for this summary. but didnt know thats all in wow (i only played till RoC)

My pleasure. Just to be clear, only the last sentence is taking place in WoW, the other things I mentioned was before the game.
And even with the lore since the start of WoW over 10 years ago you could do at least 6 movies. Damn, I still hope so very much that they will do a franchise out of this and give us more movies.

[Midvillian1322]

My pleasure. Just to be clear, only the last sentence is taking place in WoW, the other things I mentioned was before the game.
And even with the lore since the start of WoW over 10 years ago you could do at least 6 movies. Damn, I still hope so very much that they will do a franchise out of this and give us more movies.

If they do, im guessing the budget will be rolled back. NA audiences didnt turn up but overseas did so it has a chance i guess. I just wouldnt want to see this movie with a smaller budget, the beautiful CGI was its biggest point.

[Drz]

Well the "good" news is that the movie is right around the corner to hit the 400 million mark worldwide, but the bad news is that it seems to have died in its biggest markets with a sharp 80% drop. I still think Legendary and their owner can make a sequel, but with a smaller budget so therefore i'd wager they could make a movie about the green orc baby, because his story is small scale but personal.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Well the "good" news is that the movie is right around the corner to hit the 400 million mark worldwide, but the bad news is that it seems to have died in its biggest markets with a sharp 80% drop. I still think Legendary and their owner can make a sequel, but with a smaller budget so therefore i'd wager they could make a movie about the green orc baby, because his story is small scale but personal.

I really doubt this film gets a sequel. Because the film is DOA in America right now and has only earned like $37+ million here. It a pretty good bet it may not even gross $50 million here.

[Drz]

I'll settle for a Netflix series too.

[k von doom]

I watched this yesterday and it was good but not great. The LotR series is the standard by which fantasy movies will be measured and this falls short. The visuals were spectacular. Your eyes and ears will be entertained. And it’s not just gratuitous CGI; the CGI works well and looks great. This is the first and only movie, thus far, to get magic visuals right. One thing though, when you watch the movie get ready to go 100mph from the start - the 2 hours will go fast. Whereas LotR involved a lot of walking; Warcraft skips all that and gets right into the action. The movie could have improved with an additional 40 or so minutes for establishing shots and getting the audience to connect with the characters. I’d rate it as the best video game based movie; that’s not really a stellar heap to be on top of but it’s a good building block for the genre.