Who gets the money 2011

Proper distribution is very important for a movie production. Without proper distribution, movie can never succeed. Movie's grosses / revenues almost always follows the opening weekend. First the opening reflects to theater grosses, then it goes to BD / DVD grosses. From there it goes to satellite, cable and common broadcasters ratings. Exceptions to the rule are rare.

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It is very easy to envy movie makers, who get big grosses with low-budget movies. Usually there is no need to torture yourself with an excessive jealousy. Most of the big profits go to the risk investors. Besides big profits, there are also big losses.

Black Swan made over $300 million grosses in Box Office and No Strings app $150 millions. Total revenues for production companies and distributors were over $220 millions. The value of production and marketing was app $50 millions. Net profits, from theater distribution were app $170 millions.

On the other hand Other Woman, Hesher and Your Highness made big losses. Grosses from these movies were app $23 millions, production and marketing costs were app $81 millions. These movies have produced almost $60 million losses. 

Estimated $150 + $41 million Thor, is giving some grosses to the big movie companies, Walt Disney ( Marvel ), and Viacom ( Paramount ). Estimated grosses are over $410 millions, from which movie companies get over $220 millions. Thor is estimated to get app $41 million net profits.

From these numbers we get app $97 million net profits for Natalie's indie movies from the year 2011.  Investors, who financed these movies, are also financing many other productions. They get the profits from Natalie's successful movies to cover losses from other movies and new productions.

Due to the disastrous Christmas season 2010, the big movie companies are not using the profits for new huge budget movies. Most of the money goes to the bankers, who financed big losses and gave loans to the companies. The companies are acting like they usually do, the profits from the successful profitable movies are used to cover losses from non-profitable productions and to the new production.

In the big companies losses are not very visible. They are hidden inside the bookkeeping. The profits the companies show in public are stripped from the losses of the individual movies. These profits are also cleaned from the bonuses which are paid to stuff and executives. From this net profit IRS takes app 35% as income taxes. West European IRSs take 40-50%.

In big companies there are also investors, who get the profits. The owners of the big movie companies gather the profits from the successful movies. Usually they take app 30% from the net-profits ( 50% from profits after tax payments ). And leave app 30% from the loss less profits is used to new productions. Quite a many owners / investors uses and votes for the traditional 50-50 dividends.