I like to see a Sony one. Out of all the big studios, they chose to keep with the old formula and if they didn't think a film would go well...sell to a streaming service. Remember this: Sony produced The Boys and Last of Us!
@laladoopsy Sony has been smart, though at the beginning of the streaming wars, others probably thought they were dumb. It is definitely easier to make deals with others than to do it themselves.
He just showed the straight sales figures for home video . But it's like the box office figures, the studios Don't get it all back. The company the produce the discs and distributes and merchandises them in stores, they get a cut. Then Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy, they get their cut. Or if you stream it in Apple , Amazon , Vudu, they take their cut etc.
Yes! Dan this is a goldmine for interesting data analysis. I know some cinematic universes are ongoing, but you can certainly track and analyze some of the bigger and older ones.
I think it would also be interesting to see this for other franchises. Harry Potter would be interesting to see the profitability considering just how much WB seems to want to keep it around
@@AllInTheGame01 Yeah but it still got released in a packed holiday season with army Poppins returns, spiderman into the spider verse, and bumblebee all coming out the same time. And Aquaman still made more than all of those. I think it kind of became the "avatar" movie event of that season
@@mania4270 Sure, but unlike the vast majority of other billion-dollar grossing comic book movies, Aquaman ($1.15bn) literally doesn't get close to $1bn w/o its $300m Chinese B.O. That's also why it's not as profitable as it should have been as WB gets a much smaller cut (just 22.5%) of that $300m which is why according to Dan it's only around $80m more profitable than Wonder Woman ($824m) despite grossing around $328m more worldwide!
I use to work for a marketing agency that did work during the early DCEU and it should be noted that they made a crazy amount of backend revenue through Warner Bros consumer products. Just reviving these characters allowed them to turn a profit through doors that were not open before. For Super Hero movies and animated movies the long term $$$$ is in the merchandising, licensing etc.
According to TV Tropes, Man of Steel made over $150 million in product tie-ins before hitting theaters at all. Similar was undoubtedly the case with Batman v. Superman. Note that I have not actually seen either movie. I would have seen the former when it came out but I fell sick and skipped it.
It makes too much sense that they made overall profit on this. If they weren't why didn't they stop after Justice League? They probably made a small profit but it became too risky after The Flash.
I think it's a double edged sword though. As a kid, your sense of quality is somewhat odd. You don't care whether or not the movie is good, you see a shiny new batman toy and you want that so your parents buy it for you. There was no reason to put as much money into these films as they did if their intention was to put them on backpacks and lunchboxes to break even. And honestly it's like... if a kid wants a backpack with batman on it and the parent buys the one with the movie version.... did the movie sell that backpack or did it just happen to be one with the character on it?
I would love to see you do this for the MCU. Maybe break it up into phases to keep it manageable, but with the rough year Disney/Marvel just had it would be cool to see how that compares to the overall success of the MCU. Was it a big blow, or rather small in comparison to all the hits they had?
Acctually you should probably add the cost of batgirl in your calculations as well. They did spend quite a lot of money on it, even if was binned in the end
I don't remember any details or rumors, would Batgirl have any connection to the rest of DCEU or would it have been a separate concept like Joker or The Batman?
@@Cotsos88 Last I remember, She was supposed to be under Keaton's batman from the Flash. I don't know whether Keaton was going to replace Affleck, they had Clooney's Batman in there as well it was a mess.
@@Cotsos88they were planning on using her Batgirl in the dceu movies, and then starting a Batman Beyond like franchise. Her character was also supposed to show up in two out of the five original main endings (that we know of) from The Flash movie.
I would kill for a profitability video like this but on the MCU, especially the more recent phases, though I know with so much exclusive Disney+ content that might be impossible.
It's safe to say the first 3 phases made money as a whole. Phase 4 so far, hmmmm... likely not. I agree however, seeing each individual phase broken down, would be interesting to see.
@@purple1441 Just so I understand your comment, you're stating phase 4 movies made money and the shows related to them didn't? Personally, the shows should be included, they're interconnected.
@@Mave-rick I don't actually know if the shows didn't make money. WandaVision definitely did and She-Hulk definitely didn't, but we can't really determine the rest. Also, because of Disney+ the movies get added there so it adds to the revenue. Phase 4 is gonna be a lot more complicated to calculate than Phases 1-3.
@@purple1441 Your original comment, if you stick to the movies, Phase 4 more than likely made money. Agreed. Like I said originally, adding the shows, I'm not so sure.
I LOVE the Kan-Kan so much! I'm glad it was included. I almost commented/tried to message so you would think about including them, they are our favorite theatre/restaurant. Thanks Dan!
So happy to see you shout out Kan-Kan!! They are super supportive of the local film scene here in Indy as well. Was just there the other day catching a screening of a film that my friend starred in and the theater was super accommodating. Whenever I finish my own film I will definitely be screening there
Hey Dan, thank you for your analysis❤ Not to be that guy, but there's a problem with your math at 21:24 See, you got the profits from Deadline and subtracted from them the losses you calculated. However, Deadline had already worked in some of these losses (for example: the theatrical losses from MoS). So by substracting them again, you substracted twice. What you should do is that you only substract the losses of the films that Deadline did not list as profitable.
Hats off to you Dan for the DCEU Profitability Deep Dive, great work! To have only 3 out of 15 movies (20%) be profitable in their theatrical run is pretty embarrassing! Pandemic aside, a huge $185m prod budget (2nd highest ever for an R-rated movie) for Gunn's Suicide Squad never seemed like a smart decision!
suicide squad was one of the 3 profitable movies despite being pretty negatively reviewed by audiences and critics alike. the release strategy, marketing (including title -- why confuse everyone with such a similar title?), and the piracy dan mentioned all contributed to the suicide squad massively underperforming despite strong reviews. i know i've seen it multiple times and i think it's the only dceu movie where this is true.
@@michaelnally2841 Obviously, but a $185m prod budget for an R-rated movie (2nd highest ever) is HUGE esp for a franchise that was already struggling in terms of profitability at that point!
The Thin Red Line was great, but I could absolutely not stay awake through the whole thing. I first saw it in college, where they used to show movies for a dollar Thursday through Sunday nights. I went to like a midnight showing (maybe 1am, because I think it's long) and was knocked out during the part where the soldiers walk through a field with the fancy artistic shots. Then a few years later I saw it in Blockbuster and rented it so I could see the parts I missed, and somehow it knocked me out again in the middle of the day. Usually I'm not a great sleeper, but that movie put me to sleep twice.
The losses are generally calculated, and written off as a business expense in order to bring down the overall tax burden for the studio, or the parent organization. In addition, hard assets, like sound studios - which are used for future productions - are also written off as "production costs" against the first movie to be shot there. It is all a shell game. The actual cost for most movies is actually much less, but the studios live for the buzz surrounding big numbers. It generates hype, plants expectation, and creates desire to see the film.
I've typed this on a previous video before but I'd love to see a deep dive on the current budget of movies at the top end vs yesteryear. Some of the movies that people remember for their budget (Waterworld or Cleopatra for instance) just don't measure up to the movie budgets today when adjusted for inflation.
I’m wondering if WB ended up damaging the brand with the DCEU. 20 years ago, if you had asked anyone about their favorite superhero, most of the answers would have been DC characters. But after bad movies (Martha) and out of character actions (Superman killing?) , coupled with really great Marvel movies, I doubt you’d get the same results today.
DC was already losing the comics sales battle to Marvel for many decades... the movies were the only thing they had. They may not have damaged the IP itself (The Batman still turned a pretty good profit), but definitely hurt the fandom's trust that DC/Warner are able to do anything more than standalone movies.
The “Elseworld’s” projects for DC like Joker and The Batman brought in loads of money, and the sequels will keep bringing profit in with the films making over a billion again…
"Joker and The Batman brought in loads of money, and the sequels will keep bringing profit in with the films making over a billion again" That's very unlikely seeing how RPat's Batman didn't even make a billion. Joker did, but that's because it came out during the 2019 superhero peak which is clearly long dead now.
How did it lose more? I’m pretty sure it was a smaller budget relative to BvS and it also had critical/audience goodwill. It didn’t score a billion dollars, but its grosses are probably comparable to “Batman Begins.”
“The Batman: Part II” or whatever it’s called could still make big bucks, and possibly even a billion. Audiences and reviewers actually liked it, and positive feelings on the last one means more people will be looking forward to seeing a continuation. Think the jump from “Batman Begins,” which wasn’t remarkable but did solidly along with DVD sales and merchandising to turn a bit of profit [at least that’s what I read somewhere] to the (at the time) record-breaking success of “The Dark Knight.”
@@Edd_LShorewhy just lie for no reason? The Batman cost less to make…there was a report I saw that The Batman made over $200 million in profit for the studio including outside sources too
@@entertainmentfan1463u realize first films in franchises rarely make a billion? The Batman comes second only to Joker for making the most money in the first film of a comic book franchise…sequels are supposed to do better
The Batman and Joker franchises are just bringing in more eyes on DC and making them more money with the wins…the spin-off shows in The Batman universe will do great as well…and James Gunn’s DCU will bring success as well
I have a very similar memory to you with Varsity Blues. When I was 16 I went out with a few friends to see Ted (2012). Here in Australia the movie is rated MA15+, and we were all 16. But one of my friends didn't have their student ID on them, and the cinema staff wouldn't sell her a ticket. What we ended up doing was going for a walk (since the movie wasn't supposed to start for a while), and then when we came back, we gave her one of our tickets so that she could go straight into the theatre. Meanwhile the rest of us went through the candy bar queue, buying an extra ticket in the process. In the end we all got in to see the movie, and it was a really fun time. I haven't seen any of them in years unfortunately, since we all went our separate ways soon after. But it's a total core memory for me, and I think about that day every time I watch Ted.
And obviously DC brought in loads of money from Superman 1978, to Tim Burton’s/Michael Keaton’s Batman movies, to The Dark Knight trilogy, and still going on today
When I was a kid in the Bronx, our neighborhood theater never seemed to care about selling tickets to R-rated movies to kids under 17. When I was in my early 20s, I was living in Albany, NY. My then 16-year-old brother was visiting me, and we decided to go to the movies. We went to Crossgates Mall to see the Lou Diamond Phillips classic The First Power. After we bought tickets, the woman at the box office asked my brother how old he was, and he answered 16. When she then said he wasn't old enough to see the movie, our jaws dropped in shock. But perhaps in a preview of my future occupation as a lawyer, I told the woman: This is my brother. He is staying with me, which makes me his guardian, and I am accompanying him so he can see the movie. She let him in. It's been a while since I thought about that. Maybe I should find a DVD of The First Power that I can give to my brother for his birthday. He'll be 51 in October. That's old enough to see an R-rated movie, right?
Thin Red Line is actually one of the few movies I have very clear, very distinct memories of seeing in theater. Because it remains the only movie I walked out of for a break, because I was so bored I was falling asleep.
Happy to see the independent theater segment back. Don't know if these have been mentioned, but I would check out The Main Cinema in Minneapolis and Zeitgeist Zinema in Duluth. I recently moved to Minnesota and fell in love with these two theaters to provide great movie experiences. ❤
The profit headlines were all gold. Each one gave me a chuckle. Also, holy crap that's a LOT of money lost, theatrically. Also, The only DC movies I have on physical media are The Dark Knight, Killing Joke, Joker, and The Batman. Not a single DCEU film.
Man, the loss for The Suicide Squad hurts. It was by far the best superhero movie I'd seen in years. And yet, audiences didn't show up. Only The Flash did worse, and not by much.
Clarification: you say the movies made $600+ million dollars in physical media sale profits, but not all of that is profit, right? Those look like gross receipts to me, so I suspect the studios retained less than half of that when you account for the cut at retail, the cost of the actual physical production, etc. Which just further emphasizes your point: the older movies that made about $100 million, brought them another $50m in profit, which isn’t bad! But the ones only making $15 million probably only contributed a few million dollars actually towards closing the loss gap
i would have seen that Queen show, i had my ticket! the heating broke in my Cineworld and all tickets were cancelled for the whole weekend. i hope it's not the last chance to see this.
37:36 growing up in the late 90s, it felt like the high school teen movies were everywhere: American Pie, 10 things I hate about you, election, shes all that and of course varsity "I dont want your life!" blues !
Great analysis as always Dan. What I'll say is I believe that most DC execs will also include the non-DCEU films from this past decade (Joker, The Batman) into the overall profitability. By 2017's Justice League it's pretty clear to me the studio just went back to making mostly standalone movies, to the point where it stopped feeling like a universe. It's well known that internally WB didn't have the total cohesion that Marvel Studios had, and mostly greenlit films independent of each other. So, adding in the profits of Joker and The Batman would likely inch the overall result much closer to profitability.
Great work, Dan! Would love to see similar content around the 'Burtonverse' since merchandising supposedly sank that creative direction at WB. A Nolanverse would be nice too to get additional data around merchandising. IP-related revenue.
Let’s hope things go better for DC moving forward with Gunn. It’s really sad and frustrating for WB’s superhero division to keep tripping over itself while Marvel [at least until late 2022 and all of 2023] can do no wrong regardless of quality.
Hey Dan, if the box office news is slow enough in the coming months that you have time to do all this for the MCU and even break it down by Saga then that'd be great. Maybe when they announce casting for F4 or the recasting of Kang then you can tie in that story with the profitability of the Multiverse Saga and compare that with the Infinity Saga to see if it can catch up. Just a suggestion, but great episode this week.
January is the only slow month. Don't forget all the movies they pushed back because of the strikes are also coming out this year. Besides, 15 is already a fair amount. Doing all 33 MCU films may be a bridge too far. You don't have to wait for Dan though. If you're really interested you can just look this stuff up. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Cinematic_Universe_films#Reception Just add another $100 million to each movie for the marketing budget. Overall the budget and marketing come to a total of $11 billion while the overall box office is $30 billion. The streaming series rarely release exactly what their budget is (probably between $100 million and $200 million for each series in total) and there's no way to know how they calculate if they made any money. I can tell you right now the Multiverse Saga has no chance of catching up. If you take out Spider-man: No Way Home, Endgame made more than all the other movies in the Multiverse Saga combined.
The reason DCEU failed was because Warner wanted to desperately catch up with Marvel instead of creating a solid game plan to create their ultimate universe. They had the materials, the stories, the characters, and legacy, yet they still blew it. MCU is down on the ground right now and the DCU has a chance to climb back on top. Could they make it happen though?
@@alexpiperhalliwell yea that’s the only way it made that much but I mean if you tell anyone like 10 ,20,30 years before that that a Captain Marvel movie would make a billion dollars before a Batman v Superman movie is pretty insane 😂
maybe also those first DCEU made money because people still had a hope that the movies could be good and you didn't want to miss out... I only was happy that I gave money to WW and TSS
Your charts and power points are pretty good! Most people can't do that and I'm sure it takes a lot of your time. One of my sense memories is seeing Lawrence of Arabia on one of the old screens that is now gone with my High School BFF when we were home on break in 1991.
Hey Dan! Thanks for everything you do. If you need another deep dive segment, I know that you talked a bit about the secret musical tactic, but it would be cool to look into the day to day box office comparison for different musical movies that chose different marketing strategies.
18:18 that should be revenue not profits the retailer takes 50% of a physical disc sale with the remainder split between the distributer and revenue share partners.
21:37 I’m confused here. If you are looking at total profitability numbers, would that include box office losses? It’s usually Topline - Expenses = Profit/Loss vs Profit - Losses. Were those profits only considering items after the box office window? Great work though as always. Long time fan since you were at SJ. Keep up the good work!
It is crazy that around 5-6 years ago Star Wars, Marvel and DC were all dominating pop culture to various degrees and all 3 have struggled, went into decline all at the same time. Of the 3, I think DC has the best chance of a come back.
@@ChurchWorshipandvideo agreed, Lucasfilm is a completly joke at the moment with their handling of Star wars, whislt the MCU is realy on the ropes .If Marvel handle fantstic 4 and the X men well there might be a comeback, but if they fumble, it is game over for them too..
@@BigPurp9 "Tbf of the 3 Marvel was the only one that was dominating imo, most people had already soured on the other 2" That's wrong. Star Wars is literally the only franchise of that 3 to have over 65% of their movies make over a billion dollars.
Ayyy last week I asked if you'd cover the DCEU was profitable overall so this was great. Just shows as well how much studios have shot themselves in the foot in terms of physical media sales.
Hey Dan - I would have thought that the home media sales would be on a gross basis and we would need to subtract out the cost of goods sold for those sales to get a view of the “profitability”, right?
The DCEU profitability section was so good. Would love to see other franchises tackled, even if they've not ended
I like to see a Sony one. Out of all the big studios, they chose to keep with the old formula and if they didn't think a film would go well...sell to a streaming service. Remember this: Sony produced The Boys and Last of Us!
@laladoopsy Sony has been smart, though at the beginning of the streaming wars, others probably thought they were dumb. It is definitely easier to make deals with others than to do it themselves.
An MCU profitability breakdown would be cool to see!
He just showed the straight sales figures for home video . But it's like the box office figures, the studios Don't get it all back. The company the produce the discs and distributes and merchandises them in stores, they get a cut. Then Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy, they get their cut. Or if you stream it in Apple , Amazon , Vudu, they take their cut etc.
Please do this with other franchises ! This is so interesting ! Harry Potter , Star Wars, MCU , Fast n furious , Lord of the rings or Saw
Yes!
Dan this is a goldmine for interesting data analysis.
I know some cinematic universes are ongoing, but you can certainly track and analyze some of the bigger and older ones.
I think it would also be interesting to see this for other franchises. Harry Potter would be interesting to see the profitability considering just how much WB seems to want to keep it around
That is an amazing idea. Please do it Dan
Yes, I agree. Please do it!
It's crazy to see that Aquaman was the most popular (dollar wise) of all of the DCEU movies...Entourage really nailed it
That's essentially down to the insane $300m it grossed in China - only IW/Endgame among comic book movies have grossed more there!
@@AllInTheGame01 Yeah but it still got released in a packed holiday season with army Poppins returns, spiderman into the spider verse, and bumblebee all coming out the same time. And Aquaman still made more than all of those. I think it kind of became the "avatar" movie event of that season
@@mania4270 Sure, but unlike the vast majority of other billion-dollar grossing comic book movies, Aquaman ($1.15bn) literally doesn't get close to $1bn w/o its $300m Chinese B.O. That's also why it's not as profitable as it should have been as WB gets a much smaller cut (just 22.5%) of that $300m which is why according to Dan it's only around $80m more profitable than Wonder Woman ($824m) despite grossing around $328m more worldwide!
Vince babay
It’s good thing Vincent Chase did it so he could get Medellin made!
I use to work for a marketing agency that did work during the early DCEU and it should be noted that they made a crazy amount of backend revenue through Warner Bros consumer products. Just reviving these characters allowed them to turn a profit through doors that were not open before. For Super Hero movies and animated movies the long term $$$$ is in the merchandising, licensing etc.
According to TV Tropes, Man of Steel made over $150 million in product tie-ins before hitting theaters at all. Similar was undoubtedly the case with Batman v. Superman. Note that I have not actually seen either movie. I would have seen the former when it came out but I fell sick and skipped it.
It makes too much sense that they made overall profit on this. If they weren't why didn't they stop after Justice League? They probably made a small profit but it became too risky after The Flash.
@BitcoinSkeptic1I’m still waiting for my Spaceballs:The Flame Thrower…I guess it’s still on back-order since 1987
I think it's a double edged sword though. As a kid, your sense of quality is somewhat odd. You don't care whether or not the movie is good, you see a shiny new batman toy and you want that so your parents buy it for you.
There was no reason to put as much money into these films as they did if their intention was to put them on backpacks and lunchboxes to break even. And honestly it's like... if a kid wants a backpack with batman on it and the parent buys the one with the movie version.... did the movie sell that backpack or did it just happen to be one with the character on it?
@@arthand7672 The studio backed the backpack and ultimately made money because they hold the rights
I would love to see you do this for the MCU. Maybe break it up into phases to keep it manageable, but with the rough year Disney/Marvel just had it would be cool to see how that compares to the overall success of the MCU. Was it a big blow, or rather small in comparison to all the hits they had?
It was definitely profitable, but seeing the numbers breakdown would be awesome
Acctually you should probably add the cost of batgirl in your calculations as well. They did spend quite a lot of money on it, even if was binned in the end
I don't remember any details or rumors, would Batgirl have any connection to the rest of DCEU or would it have been a separate concept like Joker or The Batman?
@@Cotsos88 Last I remember, She was supposed to be under Keaton's batman from the Flash. I don't know whether Keaton was going to replace Affleck, they had Clooney's Batman in there as well it was a mess.
@@Cotsos88they were planning on using her Batgirl in the dceu movies, and then starting a Batman Beyond like franchise. Her character was also supposed to show up in two out of the five original main endings (that we know of) from The Flash movie.
The relief on my face when Dan said Varsity Blues was a dumb movie after explaining what an important moment it was for him
Cost of Batgirl, any spend on development of abandoned projects, and Snyder cut numbers missing but great analysis of the DCEU Dan. Loved it!
Cost of Batgirl was same as the tax credit so net profit would be 0.
I would kill for a profitability video like this but on the MCU, especially the more recent phases, though I know with so much exclusive Disney+ content that might be impossible.
It's safe to say the first 3 phases made money as a whole. Phase 4 so far, hmmmm... likely not. I agree however, seeing each individual phase broken down, would be interesting to see.
@@Mave-rick If we're talking about pure movies, Phase 4 is profitable. With the shows... probably not.
@@purple1441 Just so I understand your comment, you're stating phase 4 movies made money and the shows related to them didn't?
Personally, the shows should be included, they're interconnected.
@@Mave-rick I don't actually know if the shows didn't make money. WandaVision definitely did and She-Hulk definitely didn't, but we can't really determine the rest. Also, because of Disney+ the movies get added there so it adds to the revenue.
Phase 4 is gonna be a lot more complicated to calculate than Phases 1-3.
@@purple1441 Your original comment, if you stick to the movies, Phase 4 more than likely made money. Agreed.
Like I said originally, adding the shows, I'm not so sure.
I LOVE the Kan-Kan so much! I'm glad it was included. I almost commented/tried to message so you would think about including them, they are our favorite theatre/restaurant. Thanks Dan!
So happy to see you shout out Kan-Kan!! They are super supportive of the local film scene here in Indy as well. Was just there the other day catching a screening of a film that my friend starred in and the theater was super accommodating. Whenever I finish my own film I will definitely be screening there
The way I shot up when I heard Dan mention the Kan-Kan!
Good luck with your film!
@@baronmix2193 same!! What a fun feeling
@@OneTraveller thank you so much!!
I would absolutely pay for a special long form discussion between you and Robert Meyer Burnett on film, physical media, and box office.
Great varsity Blues story Danny!
Had the same experience trying to double feature 21 jump street and goon in grade 9
As always, another fantastic deep dive, Dan. There's always a story behind the numbers . . . and, sometimes, even more numbers behind the numbers!
Hey Dan, thank you for your analysis❤ Not to be that guy, but there's a problem with your math at 21:24
See, you got the profits from Deadline and subtracted from them the losses you calculated. However, Deadline had already worked in some of these losses (for example: the theatrical losses from MoS). So by substracting them again, you substracted twice.
What you should do is that you only substract the losses of the films that Deadline did not list as profitable.
I thought there was something wrong.
Hats off to you Dan for the DCEU Profitability Deep Dive, great work! To have only 3 out of 15 movies (20%) be profitable in their theatrical run is pretty embarrassing! Pandemic aside, a huge $185m prod budget (2nd highest ever for an R-rated movie) for Gunn's Suicide Squad never seemed like a smart decision!
Although I feel his suicide squad would’ve made a lot more money had it not come out during the pandemic
suicide squad was one of the 3 profitable movies despite being pretty negatively reviewed by audiences and critics alike. the release strategy, marketing (including title -- why confuse everyone with such a similar title?), and the piracy dan mentioned all contributed to the suicide squad massively underperforming despite strong reviews. i know i've seen it multiple times and i think it's the only dceu movie where this is true.
@@michaelnally2841You both have good points.
@@michaelnally2841 Obviously, but a $185m prod budget for an R-rated movie (2nd highest ever) is HUGE esp for a franchise that was already struggling in terms of profitability at that point!
Gunn's SS was great. I did wish I didnt watch it at home.
Once again, the most comprehensive, fact based look into the industry. Thank you.
Who else would do something like this? Dan is unique.
The Thin Red Line was great, but I could absolutely not stay awake through the whole thing. I first saw it in college, where they used to show movies for a dollar Thursday through Sunday nights. I went to like a midnight showing (maybe 1am, because I think it's long) and was knocked out during the part where the soldiers walk through a field with the fancy artistic shots. Then a few years later I saw it in Blockbuster and rented it so I could see the parts I missed, and somehow it knocked me out again in the middle of the day. Usually I'm not a great sleeper, but that movie put me to sleep twice.
MCU analysis same time next week? Would be quite the undertaking, but very interesting.
Andrew from NJ, you started talking numbers and you have my attention.
It would be interesting (at least to me) to hear people’s ‘movie memories’, maybe using the Mint Mobile Hotline to collect and compile them.
The losses are generally calculated, and written off as a business expense in order to bring down the overall tax burden for the studio, or the parent organization. In addition, hard assets, like sound studios - which are used for future productions - are also written off as "production costs" against the first movie to be shot there. It is all a shell game. The actual cost for most movies is actually much less, but the studios live for the buzz surrounding big numbers. It generates hype, plants expectation, and creates desire to see the film.
I've typed this on a previous video before but I'd love to see a deep dive on the current budget of movies at the top end vs yesteryear. Some of the movies that people remember for their budget (Waterworld or Cleopatra for instance) just don't measure up to the movie budgets today when adjusted for inflation.
I’m wondering if WB ended up damaging the brand with the DCEU. 20 years ago, if you had asked anyone about their favorite superhero, most of the answers would have been DC characters. But after bad movies (Martha) and out of character actions (Superman killing?) , coupled with really great Marvel movies, I doubt you’d get the same results today.
DC was already losing the comics sales battle to Marvel for many decades... the movies were the only thing they had. They may not have damaged the IP itself (The Batman still turned a pretty good profit), but definitely hurt the fandom's trust that DC/Warner are able to do anything more than standalone movies.
I will never understand why certain people want General Zod to be alive.
Thanks Dan. years on from Charts, I still like tuning in.
Great show. Never change that “Price is Right”/“Legend of Zelda” sound effect on the inflation button! 🎉
I have to say, the Mint Mobile sponsor section is smart, throwback advertising. Good work.
The “Elseworld’s” projects for DC like Joker and The Batman brought in loads of money, and the sequels will keep bringing profit in with the films making over a billion again…
"Joker and The Batman brought in loads of money, and the sequels will keep bringing profit in with the films making over a billion again"
That's very unlikely seeing how RPat's Batman didn't even make a billion. Joker did, but that's because it came out during the 2019 superhero peak which is clearly long dead now.
How did it lose more? I’m pretty sure it was a smaller budget relative to BvS and it also had critical/audience goodwill. It didn’t score a billion dollars, but its grosses are probably comparable to “Batman Begins.”
“The Batman: Part II” or whatever it’s called could still make big bucks, and possibly even a billion. Audiences and reviewers actually liked it, and positive feelings on the last one means more people will be looking forward to seeing a continuation. Think the jump from “Batman Begins,” which wasn’t remarkable but did solidly along with DVD sales and merchandising to turn a bit of profit [at least that’s what I read somewhere] to the (at the time) record-breaking success of “The Dark Knight.”
@@Edd_LShorewhy just lie for no reason? The Batman cost less to make…there was a report I saw that The Batman made over $200 million in profit for the studio including outside sources too
@@entertainmentfan1463u realize first films in franchises rarely make a billion? The Batman comes second only to Joker for making the most money in the first film of a comic book franchise…sequels are supposed to do better
Kan Kan in Indy is such an exceptional arthouse! So cool to see my local theater referenced on the show.
The Batman and Joker franchises are just bringing in more eyes on DC and making them more money with the wins…the spin-off shows in The Batman universe will do great as well…and James Gunn’s DCU will bring success as well
the amount of work put into this video is insane, even for Dan standards! It does not go unnoticed dude, thanks for the vid :)
Kan Kan shout-out! My favorite theater in the Indy area. Truly a great theater
The thumbnail should've said, "Did the DCEU make *WAVES* after all?"
Or have they always been UNDER WATER?
Short answer- Nah lol
Why?
@@AdjectiveOtter It’s a Aquaman pun.
No. A24 did back in 2019 😏
Everytime you say "Fall-Holiday" I hear Valhalla Day! And Im like Hel Yeah!!!
I have a very similar memory to you with Varsity Blues.
When I was 16 I went out with a few friends to see Ted (2012). Here in Australia the movie is rated MA15+, and we were all 16. But one of my friends didn't have their student ID on them, and the cinema staff wouldn't sell her a ticket. What we ended up doing was going for a walk (since the movie wasn't supposed to start for a while), and then when we came back, we gave her one of our tickets so that she could go straight into the theatre. Meanwhile the rest of us went through the candy bar queue, buying an extra ticket in the process.
In the end we all got in to see the movie, and it was a really fun time. I haven't seen any of them in years unfortunately, since we all went our separate ways soon after. But it's a total core memory for me, and I think about that day every time I watch Ted.
Hahaha....as someone who loves his own work spreadsheets that I created myself, your bit about how you do your work was awesome. Thanks Dan!
And obviously DC brought in loads of money from Superman 1978, to Tim Burton’s/Michael Keaton’s Batman movies, to The Dark Knight trilogy, and still going on today
For Aquaman to be the star is wild. But honestly do you think they sold 1.2 billion in toys from the movies to make it worth wild in licensing??
When I was a kid in the Bronx, our neighborhood theater never seemed to care about selling tickets to R-rated movies to kids under 17. When I was in my early 20s, I was living in Albany, NY. My then 16-year-old brother was visiting me, and we decided to go to the movies. We went to Crossgates Mall to see the Lou Diamond Phillips classic The First Power. After we bought tickets, the woman at the box office asked my brother how old he was, and he answered 16. When she then said he wasn't old enough to see the movie, our jaws dropped in shock. But perhaps in a preview of my future occupation as a lawyer, I told the woman: This is my brother. He is staying with me, which makes me his guardian, and I am accompanying him so he can see the movie. She let him in. It's been a while since I thought about that. Maybe I should find a DVD of The First Power that I can give to my brother for his birthday. He'll be 51 in October. That's old enough to see an R-rated movie, right?
Christ. I knew the DCEU wasn't as successful as Marvel, but I didn't realize it was THAT bad. What a fucking joke.
"hee hee"
"ha ha"
"hoo hoo"
- Joe Car
Thin Red Line is actually one of the few movies I have very clear, very distinct memories of seeing in theater. Because it remains the only movie I walked out of for a break, because I was so bored I was falling asleep.
Happy to see the independent theater segment back. Don't know if these have been mentioned, but I would check out The Main Cinema in Minneapolis and Zeitgeist Zinema in Duluth. I recently moved to Minnesota and fell in love with these two theaters to provide great movie experiences. ❤
I love these franchise breakdowns! Please do some more.
The profit headlines were all gold. Each one gave me a chuckle. Also, holy crap that's a LOT of money lost, theatrically. Also, The only DC movies I have on physical media are The Dark Knight, Killing Joke, Joker, and The Batman. Not a single DCEU film.
Man, the loss for The Suicide Squad hurts. It was by far the best superhero movie I'd seen in years. And yet, audiences didn't show up. Only The Flash did worse, and not by much.
Clarification: you say the movies made $600+ million dollars in physical media sale profits, but not all of that is profit, right? Those look like gross receipts to me, so I suspect the studios retained less than half of that when you account for the cut at retail, the cost of the actual physical production, etc.
Which just further emphasizes your point: the older movies that made about $100 million, brought them another $50m in profit, which isn’t bad! But the ones only making $15 million probably only contributed a few million dollars actually towards closing the loss gap
Exactly. I don't know why he would consider gross sales the same thing as profit.
@@nowayjose596 I think it's because he doesn't know the percentage the studio keeps so just to be safe, he just list it as profit.
Some sterling detective work there Mr Murrell, well done and thank you.
What I remember about Varsity Blues was that it was in the DVD collection of every man in America because of Ali Larter. Those DVD sales were poppin'.
i would have seen that Queen show, i had my ticket! the heating broke in my Cineworld and all tickets were cancelled for the whole weekend. i hope it's not the last chance to see this.
I actually was planning to see ISS and probably still will, it looks more interesting than mean girls....and i love musicals.
37:36 growing up in the late 90s, it felt like the high school teen movies were everywhere: American Pie, 10 things I hate about you, election, shes all that and of course varsity "I dont want your life!" blues !
I would love to see a MCU profit/loss breakdown.
The Suicide Squad led to a Peacemaker spinoff tv show that was a hit and definitely made more money too
Great analysis as always Dan. What I'll say is I believe that most DC execs will also include the non-DCEU films from this past decade (Joker, The Batman) into the overall profitability. By 2017's Justice League it's pretty clear to me the studio just went back to making mostly standalone movies, to the point where it stopped feeling like a universe. It's well known that internally WB didn't have the total cohesion that Marvel Studios had, and mostly greenlit films independent of each other.
So, adding in the profits of Joker and The Batman would likely inch the overall result much closer to profitability.
That kid who Narc'ed on you when you went to see Varsity Blues, what a kill-joy.
Brilliant video Dan, so interesting as always!
The Kan-Kan is awesome, nice to see it get highlighted.
Great work, Dan! Would love to see similar content around the 'Burtonverse' since merchandising supposedly sank that creative direction at WB. A Nolanverse would be nice too to get additional data around merchandising. IP-related revenue.
Let’s hope things go better for DC moving forward with Gunn. It’s really sad and frustrating for WB’s superhero division to keep tripping over itself while Marvel [at least until late 2022 and all of 2023] can do no wrong regardless of quality.
Am I the only one to want Dan to breakdown all 30+ marvel films and see what numbers pop up just the way he did this DCEU
At this point I’m convinced movie studios have unlimited monies. It’s like a performer who entertains despite their own ruin. How honorable.
Could you do this for marvel as well, And compare? Also maybe add in how much they bought the actual IP for.
The amount of work put in this video is insane. Well done Dan
I would like to nominate The Frida Cinema in Santa Ana, CA for the Arthouse Theater showcase if I can. It’s such a fun theater
What about a) Batgirl and b) Merchandising?
I love DC and their films. Not all of the DCEU films. But I love what you did here. Thanks for doing all of this work.
Hey Dan, if the box office news is slow enough in the coming months that you have time to do all this for the MCU and even break it down by Saga then that'd be great. Maybe when they announce casting for F4 or the recasting of Kang then you can tie in that story with the profitability of the Multiverse Saga and compare that with the Infinity Saga to see if it can catch up. Just a suggestion, but great episode this week.
January is the only slow month. Don't forget all the movies they pushed back because of the strikes are also coming out this year. Besides, 15 is already a fair amount. Doing all 33 MCU films may be a bridge too far. You don't have to wait for Dan though. If you're really interested you can just look this stuff up. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Cinematic_Universe_films#Reception
Just add another $100 million to each movie for the marketing budget. Overall the budget and marketing come to a total of $11 billion while the overall box office is $30 billion. The streaming series rarely release exactly what their budget is (probably between $100 million and $200 million for each series in total) and there's no way to know how they calculate if they made any money. I can tell you right now the Multiverse Saga has no chance of catching up. If you take out Spider-man: No Way Home, Endgame made more than all the other movies in the Multiverse Saga combined.
Nuts that a studio can operate with consistent deficits.
Only theatrically. As I showed, they often make those deficits up elsewhere
The reason DCEU failed was because Warner wanted to desperately catch up with Marvel instead of creating a solid game plan to create their ultimate universe. They had the materials, the stories, the characters, and legacy, yet they still blew it. MCU is down on the ground right now and the DCU has a chance to climb back on top. Could they make it happen though?
Wait, so an over-billion-dollar grossing film only made 150 million profit? How? Why do we even make movies with these margins?
Because the box office is just one piece of the puzzle. $150 million from just one revenue stream is great for a movie.
37:20 Is there a reason 4 & 5 don't have flags next to them?
You should talk about the Egyptian theater in Seattle :)
Dan you should clip the DC part of this and make its own video, really interesting analysis.
Looking back it’s pretty wild that a Captain Marvel film made 1 billy while the first la Batman v Superman did not
Its not wild it was well positioned right before Endgame and people considered it a must watch before the big event.
@@alexpiperhalliwell yea that’s the only way it made that much but I mean if you tell anyone like 10 ,20,30 years before that that a Captain Marvel movie would make a billion dollars before a Batman v Superman movie is pretty insane 😂
I went and saw The Beekeeper on Dan’s sorta recommendation, and throughly enjoyed myself. It was hysterically bad but I needed a good laugh
The DCEUs top 6 were all rekeased in 2018 and before and everything after then was a drop. You can see the moment people gave up
maybe also those first DCEU made money because people still had a hope that the movies could be good and you didn't want to miss out... I only was happy that I gave money to WW and TSS
More videos like this please 🙏
Dan, your answer for the Ferrari question was so damn informative. I mean wow dude, you are the shyt.
great break down. please do this for MCU and Disney Star Wars!
Dan, where did you get that t-shirt? I need it!!!
Your charts and power points are pretty good! Most people can't do that and I'm sure it takes a lot of your time.
One of my sense memories is seeing Lawrence of Arabia on one of the old screens that is now gone with my High School BFF when we were home on break in 1991.
Tribute used to have a free in-theatre magazine filled with entertainment stories.
Just a question is it net profit after the theater's cut or before?
After the theater’s cut.
Be great if you could do this as a standalone for the MCU as it stands today.
Can we find out how much global airlines pay for these movies?
Hey Dan! Thanks for everything you do. If you need another deep dive segment, I know that you talked a bit about the secret musical tactic, but it would be cool to look into the day to day box office comparison for different musical movies that chose different marketing strategies.
Loved the DCEU profit breakdown!
Omg Dan JW is my fav composer where'd you get that shirt
18:18 that should be revenue not profits the retailer takes 50% of a physical disc sale with the remainder split between the distributer and revenue share partners.
This data about dceu is very illuminating that the approach with streaming is really the overall issue with the performances of many IPs.
21:37 I’m confused here. If you are looking at total profitability numbers, would that include box office losses? It’s usually Topline - Expenses = Profit/Loss vs Profit - Losses. Were those profits only considering items after the box office window? Great work though as always. Long time fan since you were at SJ. Keep up the good work!
James Gunn’s DCU will bring in big money
It is crazy that around 5-6 years ago Star Wars, Marvel and DC were all dominating pop culture to various degrees and all 3 have struggled, went into decline all at the same time. Of the 3, I think DC has the best chance of a come back.
It’s also the only one signaling a strong change in direction.
@@ChurchWorshipandvideo yeah further downwards
@@ChurchWorshipandvideo agreed, Lucasfilm is a completly joke at the moment with their handling of Star wars, whislt the MCU is realy on the ropes .If Marvel handle fantstic 4 and the X men well there might be a comeback, but if they fumble, it is game over for them too..
Tbf of the 3 Marvel was the only one that was dominating imo, most people had already soured on the other 2
@@BigPurp9 "Tbf of the 3 Marvel was the only one that was dominating imo, most people had already soured on the other 2"
That's wrong. Star Wars is literally the only franchise of that 3 to have over 65% of their movies make over a billion dollars.
This Friday the new black and white version of Godzilla Minus One is released for limited screening until next month is gone.
Ayyy last week I asked if you'd cover the DCEU was profitable overall so this was great. Just shows as well how much studios have shot themselves in the foot in terms of physical media sales.
Holy Lord... how did 15 movies happen here??!?!?! LOLOL.... Really love this breakdown!!! Hope you take on a few other popular Franchises/IP's!!!
The Dumpster Fire that was Batgirl was not mentioned, but I'm thinking we can just put that in the loss category.
Surely a full analysis of the profitability of the DCEU should include the production costs of Batwoman.
Not part of the DCEU. That was a CW show.
Batgirl u meam
And add the profit of the joker too?
@@infpatmii6392 are you assuming their gender?
but then you would also have to talk about advanced accounting re tax credits etc. I think dan's way is more sensible
Hey Dan - I would have thought that the home media sales would be on a gross basis and we would need to subtract out the cost of goods sold for those sales to get a view of the “profitability”, right?