Yep, you still don't know what you're discussing and it's so
painfully obvious. I guess you must feel bad about getting obliterated in that Cuba thread so you're now here pretending you actually have a clue how this business works. Sigh, alright:
First fact: Sony's market share stands at
12% of actual box office returns:
2014 Market Share and Box Office Results by Movie Studio - in raw numbers, 1.2 billion
Second fact: Sony/Columbia's current 2014 revenue is
78 billion dollars.
• Sony: total revenue 2008-2014 | Statistic
Third fact: This movie was estimated to bring in around
100 million. In short, it was going to bring in both production costs (44 million), marketing costs (estimated at 35 million) and just enough to turn a profit of a whopping
21 million dollars.
Sony The Interview Loss - Business Insider
By not going putting into theaters, Sony lost
0.0175% of Sony/Columbia's
annual revenue and
0.0026% of its
entire revenue. Big deal on a
what if estimate that wasn't guaranteed and doesn't take into account the percentage taken in by theater chains.
Now, with that said, Sony's revenue on licensing Seinfeld
alone provides 1/4th of the total profit that
The Interview was going to give back at the box office. That doesn't sound like a lot of money until you realize that this is for only
9 stations. In other words, by licensing just
one show to 36 different stations, Sony already made what the The Interview was going to make from the box office of
The Interview without even taking into account the percentage taken by theater chains. Now, if that doesn't tell you how irrelevant box office returns really are (mostly because of how many mouths eat before Sony actually gets a dollar), by
not releasing this movie, they're losing out on:
A) the millions of dollars which come as a result of syndication
B) the millions which come from pay per view
C) the millions which would have from streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, etc.
Do you realize why you're wrong to outright claim that Sony lost its profit? That's simply
nonsensical. The majority of its profit actually comes from licensing these movies out to
thousands of stations around the globe. Say it licensed this movie to a hundred stations (being conservative here) in the US for 20K over a 1 month period. That would put give Sony nearly $2,000,000 USD in
profits or 10% of its
estimated box office
revenue. It wouldn't have to share in any way with theaters. Now, by not releasing the film, guess how much profit Sony makes?
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As I said, Sony's revenue doesn't really come from box office returns. That's
chump change as comedies are
gigantic risks. It comes from
licensing these movies ou However, if you think I'm wrong, we'll see by the end of the month when actual
revenue for this movie comes back. I'm putting its revenue from this movie somewhere at 200 to 300 million mostly because I think what Sony is doing is testing PVOD's capacity to draw millions and avoid the risky
loss that comes with normal openings. At worst, it breaks even and the movie makes the same it would have at theaters thereby not actually really losing any profit at all.
But yes it is all over the net 2 hours after they "released it" in the US, which means they gonna be losing a lot of money as people will be downloading it illegally instead of renting it legally... hence my criticism. Sony had the prefect opportunity to have the first world wide online release of a movie but they blew it... I am guessing it is because they did not want to prove to the industry that it can be done and is actually profitable.