Imagine If Kids Were Into Churchy Video Games!?

The fine gentlemen over at IfAnyoneIsAsking today bemoaned the very existence of the peculiar piece of excrement that opened last weekend, Evan Almighty.

Well, not so much the movie, but the fact that such a piece of crap could cost $175 million and how Hollywood plans to, you know, make money shelling out this kind of over-priced crap.

Avant garde, Mate (touché, touché, you know what I mean).

Back in the early 90s (a completely different era than the mid 90s, according to Hawk), I used to buy USA Today. There, I said it. Aside from the superior sports section, I liked to mock Larry King and check out movie news, and in particular, box office results. It was a sport. And I used to work in a video store and the success or failure of the theatrical run of a movie directly determined what was bought for rental, so it was mildly relevant to my so-called job (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

And even as recent as fifteen years ago, that success or failure at the box office largely determined the overall success of the film from a profit standpoint and the end-of-the-line when it came to the bulk of studio revenue.

Today, it's no longer even close to the case.

Mr. Mate Famber knows all this. He's a smart man. But looking at some of the financial dynamics of today's film industry reveals just how our world of the 'Total Entertainment Experience' has created an enormous safety-net for even the biggest pile of crap coming down the pike.

The Hollywood Economist over at Slate.com breaks it down. To start - and this is on average - for every dollar made at the domestic box office from a film, the studio will spend about $1.40 (budget, marketing, distribution, etc). So, on average, it's a losing venture. A bust. But domestic box office has become merely a springboard into the myriad of media arms after the fact.

Some numbers (linked by the Slate article). Total box office take worldwide for all the studios in 2004 was $7.4 billion; total take from worldwide video distribution was $20.9 billion; total take from selling TV rights (not taking a few particulars into account) was $17.7 billion!

Tack on a video game-friendly movie like Tomb Raider and creative accounting like finding a good German tax shelter and, puff, you're crapping money.


Let's extrapolate on the potential profit of Evan Almighty:

And remember, it's PG for mild rude humor and some peril ("look, it's my duty as a knight to sample as much peril as I can..."), so appeal is critical to the prospects for success.

Last week, it made $31 million in its opening weekend (well below expectations). But given its family-friendly focus and overt, mass appeal to the churchy-types, it should have moderate legs, pushing its domestic take to around $130 million, conservatively. It's worldwide appeal, being a distinctly American cast and having Christian overtones, limits it a bit, so $70 million seems reasonable given its extremely wide distribution and Steve Carell coming off The 40 Year-Old Virgin.

That brings the worldwide box office total to about $200 million. The reported budget was $175 million. Tack on about $80 million for marketing (usually 40% of movie's budget, especially of this size) and $30 million for distribution. That leaves $285 million as the total end-cost for the film.

DVD sales and rentals - again, given its mass family/churchy-Christian appeal - will easily top $120 million. Pay-per-view, a relatively new beast that studios have salivated over, usually add something close to DVD rental numbers. Tack on another $50 million.

TV rights are the gold mine, though, simply because of their long legs. Studios can sell and resell a movie over and over again in perpetuity. Say HBO buys Evan Almighty (which it probably will - it's reached that level of suckitude). The price HBO and other premium channels pay is usually 15-20% of domestic box office. Add $22 million. Basic cable is next (USA, F/X, etc), usually at 8-10% of domestic box office. Add $11 million. Broadcast networks fall in the middle, percentage-wise. Add $18 million. Say NBC buys and airs it two years from now. ABC might buy it for air five years from now for $5 million. It keeps going.

And this only takes into account deals done after the first few weeks of its box office opening, as bidding wars are happening more early each year. And imagine the added revenue when little Jimmy Blinkensop can download it directly to his iPhone (another Farhad Manjoo hummer given to Steve Jobs).

I have Universal's potential profit at $136 million before the movie even exits the theaters. And given its broad appeal, those numbers aren't that far-fetched and a bit conservative if the domestic take surpasses extrapolated forecasts.

Also, let's not forget, in this new world of vertical integration in the movie biz, selling a movie after its theatrical run is like selling something to yourself - robbing Peter to pay Peter - taking advantages of tax dodges, hiding money in a failing media wing and selling it off, transferring losses to a better performer to avoid capital gains and so on and so on and so on. In other words, just short of Enron.

Why Steve Carell took a piece of crap like this is beyond my comprehension. Maybe he had a mortgage payment due (hope it wasn't in Tahoe). But until smart people begin to shame stupid people into avoiding idiotic movies like this one, studios will continue to pump out drivel because it makes silly good money, even if it supposedly bombs.