The numbers that are tabulated do include numbers from discount theaters.

Looks great, though. $400 million is pretty much a done deal, with a very strong chance at hitting $410 million. Beating PC's worldwide total looks unlikely now, but it may come within a few million of it.

What I want to know is why is the amount of money that a movie makes domestically (in the US) more important than the amount of money it makes overseas? Even, and sometimes especially, when the overseas box-office takings far exceed the domestic amount. Can someone explain this to me? Because as I see it, something like Tintin could do great overseas and terrible in the US and then be considered a flop. Please don't tell me the US is the ego-centric.

What I want to know is why is the amount of money that a movie makes domestically (in the US) more important than the amount of money it makes overseas? Even, and sometimes especially, when the overseas box-office takings far exceed the domestic amount. Can someone explain this to me? Because as I see it, something like Tintin could do great overseas and terrible in the US and then be considered a flop. Please don't tell me the US is the ego-centric.

One reason: currency exchange rates, which vary.

Another reason: an American studio might sell (for a flat fee) distribution rights for certain countries, in exchange for not getting a share of the box office from those countries.

What I want to know is why is the amount of money that a movie makes domestically (in the US) more important than the amount of money it makes overseas? Even, and sometimes especially, when the overseas box-office takings far exceed the domestic amount. Can someone explain this to me? Because as I see it, something like Tintin could do great overseas and terrible in the US and then be considered a flop. Please don't tell me the US is the ego-centric.

It's because, for an American-produced movie, the studios get a much larger cut of the ticket sales in America than they do overseas. Overseas, the studio's cut is 40% of the gross tops, often a lot less than that. In America, for the first 3 weeks, the studio gets the lion's share. That is why, even though VDT's foreign gross was almost 3 times the domestic, the actual net income that the studios made from VDT's foreign markets was less than twice that of their domestic income.

In the 4th week, the studio's cut decreases. Studios tend to focus on the earnings for the first 3 weeks to gauge a movie's profitability. A movie needs to be a mega-hit overseas and have extremely strong legs in America in order to make up for a poor showing in weeks 1-3 domestic.

[side note]

I just looked it up, and their coming out with a Tin Tin movie next Christmas!

Ah, thanks. That goes some way to explaining it.
Actually, the Tintin movie comes out Christmas this year (2011) but there may be other Tintin movies to follow in the coming years.

It's because, for an American-produced movie, the studios get a much larger cut of the ticket sales in America than they do overseas. Overseas, the studio's cut is 40% of the gross tops, often a lot less than that. In America, for the first 3 weeks, the studio gets the lion's share. That is why, even though VDT's foreign gross was almost 3 times the domestic, the actual net income that the studios made from VDT's foreign markets was less than twice that of their domestic income.

In the 4th week, the studio's cut decreases. Studios tend to focus on the earnings for the first 3 weeks to gauge a film's profitability. A movie needs to be a mega-hit overseas and have extremely strong legs in America in order to make up for a poor showing in weeks 1-3 domestic.

Thank you from me, also. Your comments are quite illuminating.

However, the studios tend to profit from these movies for years afterwards, from copyright etc, so why wouldn't they make up the money spent on producing and marketing it anyway? There is a whole series called Police Academy produced in USA in the 1980's and 1990's, which made next to nothing in USA itself, less than $1 mill per film, not even the cheap production costs, and it wasn't shown overseas either. However, it was exported to Australia, at any rate, where it was seen on TV quite a bit, all seven films in the series. At the time there was a furore about competing Australian TV channels buying too many films like these ones as part of trade agreements with USA, whilst doing little to show Australian films.

Once the DVD version of a movie is released, it isn't just the ordinary buyers who get it, it is the Video shops who buy such movies for rental, often in multiple copies, which they on-sell second hand to the public once the movie stops being a new release. Electrical goods stores often use DVD's like VDT will be, or Coraline, to demonstrate how well their TV's perform.

Even academic libraries will often buy new releases for their patrons' enjoyment as well, to enable their patrons' studies to be less stressful and more enjoyable. Often the most borrowed and enjoyed films in a library collection are movies that didn't do so well when first released, I've noticed. Including PC, by the way.

So if you are right, Anhun, about box office profitability, how do big studios like Warner Brothers, Fox, Disney, Paramount or Universal survive? VDT might not have shown much profit domestically, but there are plenty which don't even get onto BOM's lists.

According to Epstein,

tudio executives correctly assess, that as a rule, they lose money on "current production," their term for the American box-office. Their profit comes on most from the so-called "back end", including DVD, television and foreign receipts. In 2007, according to the secret numbers of their trade association, the MPAA, almost 90 percent of the revenue of the major studios came from world DVD sales, multi-picture output deals with foreign distributors, pay TV, and network television licensing.