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By John J. Joex

While the television networks are starting to shy away from Science Fiction and Fantasy of late, the movie studios can’t seem to get enough of the genre and they keep cranking movies that appeal to viewers like you and me. And for good reason, seeing as they have proven quite profitable for some time. Take this past Summer for example: there were 23 genre movies released during the Blockbuster season that spans from May until August and these cost the studios $2.3 billion in production costs. Seems like a staggering amount of money, but when you look at their worldwide gross, they brought in nearly three times that amount in revenue with $6.3 billion in receipts. That works out to a 276% gross margin, a number that many businesses would salivate over in this or any economy. Of course the production cost number does not include marketing costs which probably come to half as much, if not the same amount, but that still leaves a sizeable profit to be tallied up. So in total, Science Fiction and Fantasy films turned quite a profit for the movie studio over the last few months. However, like any business, some products are winners and some are losers. This Summer season had its share of both, though definitely more on the winning side than the losing side. And while some are still in the theaters and adding to their totals, looking at the numbers right after the Labor Day weekend gives us a good idea of how everything will shake out.

Looking at the Top 5 money makers domestically for the season you have in this order Toy Story 3 ($409 million), Iron Man 2 ($312 million), Twilight: Eclipse ($299 million), Inception ($278 million), and Despicable Me ($241 million). Looking at the Top 5 based on worldwide receipts changes that order just a little bit: Toy Story 3 (just over one billion), Shrek Forever After ($721 million), Inception ($697 million), Twilight: Eclipse ($655 million), and Iron Man 2 ($622 million). Looking at it yet another way, based on worldwide receipts compared to budget, you get this as the Top 5: The Last Exorcism (made on a dime and thus far having made back 18.6 times its budget), Twilight Eclipse (9.6 times its budget), Toy Story 3 (5.2 times its budget), Despicable Me (4.6 times its budget), and Shrek Forever After (4.4 times its budget).


Win a trip for 2 to Los Angeles!How much a movie makes compared to its budget is really the true measure of its success. A movie could make $200 million, but if it cost that much to make, then the studio did not even break even because they had to pay to market it as well. And that’s something that it is not always easy to get a number for and thus gauge whether a movie truly made money. We’ve heard it before where a movie pulls in a ton on receipts at the Box Office but the studio claimed they lost money. That’s generally a case where the film had a bloated budget and high marketing costs and despite filling seats it couldn’t make enough to end up in the black. Of course a lot of that has to do with Hollywood waste, but that’s really a subject for another column.

Below, I have listed all 23 Science Fiction and Fantasy films from this last season (which includes a few marginal entries like The A-Team and The Expendables) and have shown their budget, domestic gross, worldwide gross, and percent of worldwide gross to budget. Then I have ranked the list by the last measure and broken them into three categories. By my definition, the winners are the ones that made back two times their budget or more. That means they recouped their production costs and also most likely made back their marketing costs and therefore the profits from their upcoming DVD releases are just gravy. The titles from this list include all of the ones we mentioned in the various Top 5s above.

The next group are those I consider a moderate success. These fell short of doubling their budget from their ticket sales, but their gross equaled at least 1.25 times their production costs. Thus several of these are still in the red, but will most likely show a profit after counting their DVD sales. Note also that most of these needed the receipts from the overseas ticket sales to end up recouping their budget. Also not that there is one exception in this list: Piranha 3-D. That one as only made back 96% of its production costs, but it is still playing in the theaters and has not had its foreign release yet. Also, the studio has already greenlighted a sequel, so they apparently consider it a success. The titles from this section of the list include some many are pegging as losers like The Last Airbender, The A-Team, Prince of Persia, and Robin Hood.

Finally, we have the losers. These are the ones that made less than 1.25 times their budget in ticket sales and several did much worse than that. Second from the bottom in this category is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World which is still in theaters and which also still has a chance of making some money from its DVD sales. Bringing up the rear is Jonah Hex which made back less than one quarter of its budget and has to be looked at as the biggest bust of the season. Unfortunately Splice made into this section of the list as well and it seems unlikely that one will turn a profit even after its DVD release. At least it got positive returns from the critics and fans, though.

Following is the list, and you can decide for yourself based on the numbers which of these are truly the winners and losers.  The numbers are in millions and results here are based on Box Office receipts through the 2010 Labor Day weekend:

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Title Release Date Budget (MM) Domestic Gross (MM) Worldwide Gross (MM) % of Budget
Winners
The Last Exorcism Aug 27 $2 $34 $34 1862.4%
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Jun 30 $68 $299 $655 964.0%
Toy Story 3 Jun 18 $200 $409 $1,030 515.1%
Despicable Me Jul 9 $69 $241 $315 457.1%
Shrek Forever After May 21 $165 $238 $721 436.9%
Inception Jul 16 $160 $278 $697 435.8%
Iron Man 2 May 7 $200 $312 $622 310.9%
Predators Jul 9 $40 $52 $116 289.5%
Salt Jul 23 $110 $116 $262 238.4%
The Expendables Aug 13 $80 $94 $184 229.9%
Moderate Success
Knight and Day Jun 25 $117 $76 $223 190.4%
Vampires Suck Aug 18 $20 $33 $34 170.0%
The Last Airbender Jul 1 $150 $131 $253 168.9%
Prince of Persia May 28 $200 $91 $330 164.8%
Robin Hood May 14 $200 $105 $311 155.3%
The A-Team Jun 11 $110 $77 $167 151.9%
Piranha 3-D Aug 20 $24 $23 $23 96.3%
Losers
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Jul 14 $150 $62 $177 117.9%
Cats & Dogs 2 Jul 30 $85 $42 $93 109.0%
MacGruber May 21 $10 $9 $9 92.6%
Splice Jun 4 $30 $17 $24 78.7%
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Aug 13 $60 $29 $39 64.7%
Jonah Hex Jun 18 $47 $11 $11 22.4%

Source: Box Office Mojo