It's Official - Prometheus will make a profit

PrivateHudson- According to imdb.com, Snow White has made more then Prometheus in the U.S. http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/ Snow White: $137M Prometheus: $108M Yes Snow White has been out four weeks and Prometheus three but with that wide a margin ($29M) i'm confident Snow White will stay ahead in total box office.

PrivateHudson- Even in the link you provided it shows Snow White ahead. Look at the purple numbers under each title. Snow White's is higher.

Well, if you want sequel, it should reach at least 500-600 mil gross. Let's hope it can.

Well, to date "Prometheus" has made about $268 million. With the film yet to be released in Germany and Japan. After a quick look at the box office standings/takes in those countries for other recent releases I'd say that by the end of it's run the film stand a good chance of reaching $300 million in ticket sales prior to it being released via cable/internet/DVD/Blu-ray. Over at the Box Office Mojo site I was looking at an older link on the "summary" page for "Prometheus". While I don't think that the film is without flaws I do think that the write of the article hit the nail on the head about the overall positive response to the film. The bottom line is that "Prometheus" was an R rated film released in early summer. The only other recent "serious" minded action film that I can recall coming out in the summer was "Inception" and that was rated PG-13. In my mind I think that "Prometheus" has delievered enough both on screen and at the box office to make it very possible that the franchise will see another film more in the vein of "Prometheus" and less in the vein of "AVP". Those who enjoyed "Prometheus" can only hope that that is the case. [url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3461&p=.htm]http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3461&p=.htm[/url] "While it had to settle for second place, Prometheus still earned an impressive $51.05 million in its opening weekend. That's off from Inception's $62.8 million, though it's a significant improvement over Super 8's $35.5 million from the same weekend last year. It's the second-highest opening of director Ridley Scott's career behind 2001's Hannibal ($58 million), and it's also a new record for the Alien franchise ahead of Alien Vs. Predator's $38.3 million (though ticket sales were about on par with that entry). Prometheus's debut ranks 10th all-time among R-rated movies, and among action-oriented ones it was behind The Matrix Reloaded ($91.8 million), 300 ($70.9 million) and Watchmen ($55.2 million). This may not be the monumental opening many were hoping for, but by pretty much any measure it's an unqualified success. Dark, "original," R-rated sci-fi movies are a tough sell, and on paper Prometheus resembled recent duds Pandorum and Sunshine (total of $10.3 million and $3.7 million, respectively). Of course, Prometheus was a big-budget Ridley Scott movie getting a nationwide release from a major studio, so it was always going to be significantly bigger than those titles, but to get this high is really a tribute to 20th Century Fox's incredible marketing effort. When the attention-grabbing teaser trailer landed in December the movie immediately shot to the top of many must-see lists, and future material (including some cool viral videos) was equally enticing. Also, for most of the campaign there wasn't an explicit connection made to Alien, which made the movie feel like a must-see original movie event. The audience was 57 percent male and 64 percent 25 year of age and older. 3D accounted for 54 percent of ticket sales, while IMAX contributed 18 percent (nearly all of which is included within that 3D figure). While this is a great start for Prometheus, its ultimate success really comes to down to whether or not it holds up in the coming weeks. Without a CinemaScore available, and with a steep 25 percent drop from Friday-to-Saturday, the movie's long-term prospects are highly questionable. Sometimes discussion-ready movies develop must-see word-of-mouth (here's looking at you, Inception), but if the movie is frustrating enough (which anecdotally seems to be the case for some people with Prometheus) that doesn't necessarily happen. "

Prometheus entered profitability before it hit 260 million. This is because its box office was heavily front loaded, and movies keep 90-100% of their box office in the first week of release, before dropping to 80-90% in the second weekend. I don't remember the dates, but I believe it made back it's budget in the first 7-10 days. Not uncommon (if a film is a hit) for it to enter profit in its first week, if not first weekend. This is why studios push for big openings. As far as marketing costs and how they count against a film, that's a nebulous affair that involves a maze of marketing firms the studios setup for some very clever Hollywood Accounting.

[u]Roeschdale[/u]: I'd be interested to know more about exactly how the box office take is being divvied up between Fox and the theaters. Given that Fox is paying for the advertising for the film it makes sense that they get a disproportionate percentage of the box office take during the first week of the film's release. My understanding is that the theaters make most of their money on the overpriced concessions they sell theatergoers. Well, "Prometheus" is now up to $284 million and counting. I'd say that it's looking as though the film will easily tally up at least $325 million in box office sales before it leaves theaters.

The theatres make their money on concessions and in-theatre advertising (I'd forgotten how bad this is as I only go to The Arclight nowadays, so I was shocked when I ventured into a Regal Cinema during LAFF a week or so ago, and had to endure advertising). In the later weeks of a films release (week 5 and onward) theatres take a much larger share of ticket sales. 50% and up. Movies are devoured so quickly nowadays, that it is important to get as many butts in chairs as possible during that first 2-3 week window when the studio takes 80-90% (and in the case of tent pole films, even more) of box office. North American box office is still important, but nowhere near as important as it used to be. With the mass development of theatre chains in China and Russia, the game has changed in a big way. I believe almost every major release this year was released overseas *before* North America. Prometheus had taken in around 90 million overseas (I believe?), in the week leading up to opening weekend in North America. The 3 day take in North America was 50 million +. The studio takes almost all of this money, as well as all monies from Monday-Thursday leading into the second weekend. In some cases the studios second weekend take drops around 10%, in others (big films) it stays the same. The studio, in its wildest fantasy, *might* have been deluded enough to believe this film could earn 500 million. But even they know that's crazy for an R rated film with complex subject matter. So the more realistic *wildest* dream would have been around 400 million. Though I LOVE the film, the first thing I said after I saw it was, "American's are not going to embrace this." While it seems that's proved somewhat true, I am really happy this film will pass 300 million. So to recap, the general rule of a 100 million dollar film needing to make 200 million just to break even isn't always true. And in a way it goes back to an age when there weren't so many theatres, things weren't consumed so quickly, and films would play forever and ever. A 100 million dollar film can make back its production budget in its worldwide opening weekend.

The film is now at $284 million. But this article shows the amount of marketing that took place http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ridley-scott-prometheus-UK-Secret-Cinema-344150 [url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ridley-scott-prometheus-UK-Secret-Cinema-344150]Secret Cinema[/url]

Looks good...Prometheus will have zero problems passing the 300 mill mark.

If the studio was really making profitability the major issue, it would not have been R rated.

[u]Roeschdale[/u]: A tip of the hat for your most recent post. Regarding the in-theater advertising angle that you spoke about in your post, each time I saw "Prometheus" I saw it at the same AMC theater here in NYC. I doubt that there is much difference between AMC and Regal when it comes to how much in-theater advertsing that they do. [u]RobJM[/u]: That's a great point about the studio's perspective on the film's rating.