How does Bruce Willis pull it off?

Quote: Pacomartin

The problem is that actors are heavily paid for their previous work.

Bruce Willis was a 'star' in last years GI Joe
movie. Just saw it, he shows up halfway thru,
and is in maybe 12min of the last half of
the movie. All he did was play a smirking
Bruce Willis, his favorite character. And gets
paid a ridiculous amount of money for it.

Quote: Evenbob

Bruce Willis was a 'star' in last years GI Joe movie. Just saw it, he shows up halfway thru, and is in maybe 12min of the last half of the movie. And gets paid a ridiculous amount of money for it.

Chinese Box Office for movies with Bruce Willis

Live Free or Die Hard - $4 million
The Expendables 2 - $53 million
Looper - $20 million <============ Official co-production with China.
A Good Day To Die Hard - $31.6 million
G.I. Joe: Retaliation - $53.8 million

Look at this way. China's government lets a limited number of American movies play in their theaters. "Live Free or Die Hard" makes relatively little money there, but The Expendables makes a ton.

Bruce Willis makes a small film (Looper) with a glowing vision of China's future. The film earns $66 million in USA, and $20 million in China. As a co-production the version viewed by the Chinese is slightly different, highlighting the parts about China.

Among other things the GI Joe producers see Bruce Willis name as a sure way on the short list of films shown in China that year. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra in 2009 was not even permitted to be shown in China.

So whatever they paid Bruce Willis was more than made up for by the $54 million in Chinese boxoffice.

Paco I know the local studios get a large whack of the ticket sales here in the US, especially for the first few months. Do you know what their share is of the international market? Is it the same or do the figures differ?

I know the Korean film market is HUGE. They will put up a good fight against the US market anyday. These guys are silly for movies.

Also a lot of Korean movies are exported, especially to Thailand, China and other South East Asian countries.

Quote: Tomspur

Paco I know the local studios get a large whack of the ticket sales here in the US, especially for the first few months. Do you know what their share is of the international market? Is it the same or do the figures differ?

I think they usually partner with a local distributor but don't quote me. Foreign markets can be weird and an "American Movie" sometimes has a built-in market because it is American. Check out the "Shark Tank" episode on this. They pitch a movie and explain that what is most needed is a certain kind of plot, the rest sells itself in various markets.

Quote: Tomspur

Do you know what their share is of the international market? Is it the same or do the figures differ?

My understanding is that it varies from country to country and depending on their distribution deal, but is always less than the Northern America arrangement.

China, is particularly complicated. Most major Hollywood films enter China under a quota for revenue sharing titles. The only two companies allowed to distribute this category of films are state-owned enterprises China Film Group and Huaxia Film Distribution. The take was increased from 14%-17% to 25%, but the latter is not net, and some fees are taken from this sum.

Other movies,are handled by private sector studio Bona Film Group, may be imported on a flat fee basis and released by other distributors.

And official co-productions are exempted from import restrictions.

I think that the limit is 34 films, but 14 must be IMAX films.

Johnny Depp does it again. He just flopped in another
hugely expensive movie, Transcendence. This is on the
heels of his major flopperoo in Lone Ranger, The Tourist,
and Dark Shadows before that. He has a talent for picking
scripts that are born to fail. If it wasn't for Jack the Pirate,
he would have been gone years ago. He has 3 more
coming out this year and another Pirate in 2016. He
gets paid huge amounts no matter how a movie does,
but c'mon..

Dark Shadows cost 150mil and made 240mil worldwide.
But a movie needs to double it's budget to make a
profit, so it didn't make it. Transcendence got 19% at
Rotten Tomatoes, it must be a real turkey.

Quote: Evenbob

But a movie needs to double it's budget to make a profit, so it didn't make it.

It's actually higher than double. The studio collects less than half of the overseas box office (the actual number varies with the distribution deal). There is a huge distribution and promotion budget as well. It's very difficult for a film to cover all costs with boxoffice receipts. They hope to make the money in TV/DVD/ NETFLIX and ancillary promotional sales.

The traditional "rough order of magnitude" approximation is when the domestic box office equals the production budget. While the studio only gets half the receipts, they make up the rest of production and the promotional budget in international sales and in subsequent distribution agreements. With Dark Shadows making $80 million domestically and a production budget of $150 million, it fell far short of that goal.

Pirates of the Caribbean:On Stranger Tides made $241m domestically on a production budget of $250 million, but it had an exceptionally high foreign box office of $800 million. So even though domestic revenue is dropping, the foreign revenue keeps rising along with tie ins for toys and clothing.

DATE - FILM = Domestic - Foreign
5/20/11 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides = $241m - $800m
5/25/07 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End = $309m - $654m
7/7/06 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest = $423m - $643m
7/9/03 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl = $305m - $349m

Depp is almost 50, he'd better get into rom-com's,
that's where the money is. They cost a fraction of the
high budget movies to make, and can do a boatload
of cash at the BO if you have a good one.

Quote: Evenbob

Depp is almost 50, he'd better get into rom-com's,

It's pretty difficult to say that one genre consistently does better than another. Certainly rom-com, comedy, animated , horror all have examples of low budget films that made a fortune.

Budget - RomCom Film - Studio- Domestic+International
$5m My Big Fat Greek Wedding IFC $241 + $127
$70m What Women Want Par. $183 +$191
$70m Hitch Sony $179+$189
$14m Pretty Woman BV $178+$285
$23m There's Something About Mary Fox $176+193
$40m The Proposal BV $164+$153

But they are not a guaranteed money maker.

$100m The Tourist $67+$211 (Depp Salary $20m)
$135m Rango $123+$122 (Depp Salary $7.5m)

Quote: Pacomartin

#2: Keanu Reeves – $262 million from The Matrix I, II and III.

Is it just me or does anyone else think Keanu Reeves is overrated?