Flop?

I'd agree, but it didn't make a $65 million profit. Subtracting the production budget from the worldwide gross does not tell the whole story.

Marketing costs also need to be considered. In the modern film industry, the general rule of thumb is that the studio sets a marketing budget at about 50% of the production budget, so that would probably be another $35 million, leaving a profit of $30 million.

After that, other expenses get a bit harder to pin down. The distribution costs can suck up anywhere from 10-50% of the net profit, which whittles down the studio's profit to the $15 million to $27 million range. This tends to be lower if the distributor (in this case Paramount) is partnered as a production company. But Stardust was independently produced by Vaughn's own production company (paired with an outside investment company), and this was only the studio's second release, and their first released through Paramount, so it's likely that Paramount took a percentage at the higher end to make up for the risk.

Finally, the movie theaters take their piece, which probably would be a rather small percentage due to the brief time it was in theaters (general rule: the longer a film is in the theaters, the larger the percentage the theaters take). However, it wouldn't be surprising to see the theaters take 10% of the movie's gross box office, leaving very little meat on the bone.

So in the end, the movie may have made a relatively small profit during its theatrical run (although given the vagueries of what was spent for marketing and distribution, it may have even been in the red by a small margin). It avoided being a complete flop, but its profit for the studio would have been nowhere near $65 million.

I never heard about this movie until today...that's how badly it must have been marketed. I LOVED it. It's something I might have seen twice in the theaters.

Sadly, unless a movie breaks 500 million plus another 500 million in tie-in sales from toys and promotions, it's considered a flop now days.




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I never heard about this movie until today...that's how badly it must have been marketed. I LOVED it. It's something I might have seen twice in the theaters.

Sadly, unless a movie breaks 500 million plus another 500 million in tie-in sales from toys and promotions, it's considered a flop now days.




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