Could LOSE $20 million


...if it doesn't break even. Confirmed FAILURE.

https://deadline.com/2023/05/little-mermaid-box-office-profit-loss-halle-bailey-1235383099/

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Pfft. Did they forget the other 0, is that a typo? If not then this is fake news.

However, anything in the low $400M global threshold and this fish is apt to be sinking to a loss of around $20M.


The reported break even is in the $650 range. It'll be losing $200 million not $20 million.

Disney propoganda?

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The 20 million comes from the fact that they are including streaming, digital and physical media sales. So, it's obvious that the theatrical run alone is going to lose Disney near to 100 million dollars.

For those who will call me names and won't believe me, in the same article Deadline puts:

In a break-even scenario off a $560M global box office


They seem to contradict themselves, because, how can "anything in the low 400M global" make them only lose only 20M when the braking even point is 560M? We are talking of a difference of more than 100M. That makes no sense. But they explain later that they are including all the variables (video, streaming, rentals). Again, this shows that the theatrical run of this movie will be catastrophic.

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Ah I see. I didn't read the whole thing.

This is completely ingenuine though. Taking into account merch, streaming, physical media etc, etc? That is never done when discussing box office performance. It's a reframing of the narrative to make it look less bad.

The media's reporting of TLM box office performance is a true showcase for bias. They're sugarcoating everything here.

This is a major theatrical disaster, a colossal bomb.

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Right on all counts.

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That is how they count the profit and lost of the movie, but that is not the complete picture. There is something most people are not aware of when doing the financial calculation of a movie project, there is this thing called cost of capital.

Not only there is finance cost, which you pay banks and various financiers. There is also the expected return, which means I could invest these money elsewhere with stable low risk returns, so if the movie project made less than that, it is considered a loss.

I think the general expected return or cost of capital is around 12% annually, so for a $400 million investment I think around 50 million should be added as cost of capital.

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Oh yeah! But trying to explain the economic concepts of these kind of enterprise to people here who believe that a movie that cost 250M to produce, already covered its production budget the moment it makes 250M in global box office, is futile. And then they call you racist and hater, just for explaining cold and factual numbers. I wouldn't care less about this movie, I couldn't care less if Disney lose or win money with it, but he box office analysis is something some of us enjoy to do. If the analysis is not what they expected, that's not my problem.

Really, how can you make these people understand that investing 390 million dollars (250M production + 140 marketing), by breaking even or making a profit of 20 or 30 Million dollars, that's not a win for the company, much less for the investors. Even more when they can't believe that the producing company does not receive 100% of the tickets sold by the movie theaters in the world. So 550M on tickets sold, probably (most certainly) won't cover the 390M of cost.

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I thought I am the only one like doing numbers, glad I am not alone :)

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I believe it’s currently 350M WW at the moment.

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