I will go see Black Swan in a couple weeks when it is not as crucial that VDT holds up.

Black Swan is nowhere near having appeal to VDT's target demographics. Go ahead and see it now, it won't matter.

Congratulations on your first post American Eagle! I think your predictions are pretty much spot on. But why do you think it will increase so much on it's fourth weekend? Because Christmas is on Saturday? Just wondering. And is the fourth weekend a four day weekend?

I know that...BUT money I pay to see Black Swan is money I will not be paying to watch VDT.

A friend took her kids to see Tron this weekend and disliked it. Hopefully she will listen to my suggestion of watching VDT instead. She's not a sci-fi person, but not into fantasy either. But she is religious- so maybe that will get her and her family to go see VDT.

The foreign boxoffice is up-to-date
Domestic: $42,764,000 25.7%
+ Foreign: $123,656,000 74.3%
= Worldwide: $166,420,000

It's above 150 million. So the production budget is recouped. What was the cost of the marketing? I read somewhere 100 million, but that seems a bit too much.

Meh, they don't get ALL that money. Some of it goes to the theatres and stuff too. And yeah 100 for marketing sounds ridiculous since there wasn't much of it.

They actually need to make around $300 million worldwide to break even. Studios only keep about 55% percent of the gross.

It's above 150 million. So the production budget is recouped.

Eh, no, not really. In all my years of working on NarniaWeb, one thing I've never learned definitively is how much money the studio makes from the theater. Every year I do this, the theater makes more and more. (According to the forum members, it was around 20% for LWW, then 30% for PC and now it's up to 40-45% ) I spent the afternoon doing some research on this because I was curious as to how much the studio actually gets. But really, even though I found an answer, it didn't really help .

As far as I can tell, opening weekend, the studio gets 70-80% of the movie's profit (sometimes even more than that), but every weekend after that, the percentage decreases to where the theater gets more and the studio gets less. By the fifth or sixth week, the studio is only getting 35%. The shorter the time the movie is in the theater, the more goes back to the studio and less goes to the theater.

So really, in the end and depending on how long the movie sticks around in the theater, it's probably somewhere about 25% goes to the theater and 75% goes to the studio.

For foreign box office numbers, it's a good deal less. I found one article that said in 2006, American Studios averaged about 40% profit of overseas ticket sales.

So, with these guesstimate numbers, lets take a look at how much Fox and Walden have made back on VDT.

Foreign Total = $123,656,000 * 40% = $49,462,400
Domestic Total = $42,764,000 * 75% = $32,073,000

Fox/Walden's Guesstimate Total = $81,535,400

Just over half of the production budget. That does NOT include the unknown marketing budget.

Thank you for the vert informative post, Fantasia-Kitty. I'm always at a loss as to gross figures etc.

I'm very sad at the box office reception of VDT. I'm very sad we likely won't seed a movie of The Silver Chair. But then, I'm very sad at how the film of VDT turned out, too. I'm not encouraging anyone to despair, but no about of positivism from us is going to turn this around. When a movie is good, word-of-mouth works. When a film is just ok, which is what VDT is, it doesn't help.

i don't think PC came close to breaking even and we have a VDT.

Thank you for the vert informative post, Fantasia-Kitty. I'm always at a loss as to gross figures etc.

I'm very sad at the box office reception of VDT. I'm very sad we likely won't seed a movie of The Silver Chair. But then, I'm very sad at how the film of VDT turned out, too. I'm not encouraging anyone to despair, but no about of positivism from us is going to turn this around. When a movie is good, word-of-mouth works. When a film is just ok, which is what VDT is, it doesn't help.

i don't think PC came close to breaking even and we have a VDT.

I was under the impression that PC did break even. More than broke even. It just didn't compare to LWW. If VDT had had as big an opening as PC, it would be a success. But VDT only made a little more than half of what PC did on its opening.

Clive,

PC had a budget of 225m and it made only 419m world wide. If your saying PC broken even so did VDT.

i don't think PC came close to breaking even and we have a VDT.

I remember a quote from Disney right before PC released on DVD, saying that they still expected to make a tidy profit on the film after DVD sales.

PC was also probably helped with making up for inadequate box office numbers by the mountains of movie tie-in merchandise, something VDT doesn't have as much of.

MinotaurforAslan,

Ah i see, if your gonna include DVD sales and other stuff there is still a good shot at VDT turning a profit.

Walden representatives have said that PC was basically a wash for them - they didn't lose anything, but didn't make any profit, either.

VDT has a long way to go to break even. DVD sales - which have generally been on the decline for the last few years - will be less than that of PC and way below those for LWW.

There are actually a few bad things about this, not only are we unlikely to see SC, but an extended cut of VDT seems to be out of the question at this point, which is unfortunate because the extra 30 minutes if done right, is desperately needed by the film. Secondly at least we have an adaptation of SC, the other three have yet to be adapted and it looks as if they never will. Third the box office numbers also dramatically decrease the chances of a reboot, ar another adaptation- if it failed once, filmmakers are going to be afraid that it will fail again.

However, I'm not going to stop hoping, or praying, or even protesting that SC, HHB, MN, and LB will be made-and made right- until I can stand, or breathe, or think no longer. Maybe just maybe, there is still away.