Those are the weekly sales figures for Riddick, how do you go from there to 800 million. Riddick is NOT in the top twenty all times sales chart for any format, be it rental, video sales, blu ray sales. 800 million would make it one of the most successful sales launches on any format, bigger than the star wars blu rays, bigger than avatar blus. bigger than finding nemo dvd sales, bigger than mama mia sales, bigger than the call of duty software launches, all of which are regarded as the high point in all media sales ever in history. Your figures DO NOT equate to 800 million, at best you are looking at 50-150 million combined sales over the top of the existing budget on these sales and that is wildly overestimating it. Link me to any site that says what you are saying is true, ANY SITE, and I will apologise

geiger167 said:

Those are the weekly sales figures for Riddick, how do you go from there to 800 million. Riddick is NOT in the top twenty all times sales chart for any format, be it rental, video sales, blu ray sales. 800 million would make it one of the most successful sales launches on any format, bigger than the star wars blu rays, bigger than avatar blus. bigger than finding nemo dvd sales, bigger than mama mia sales, bigger than the call of duty software launches, all of which are regarded as the high point in all media sales ever in history. Your figures DO NOT equate to 800 million, at best you are looking at 50-150 million combined sales over the top of the existing budget on these sales and that is wildly overestimating it. Link me to any site that says what you are saying is true, ANY SITE, and I will apologise

These are one day figures and one week figures. I really don't need you to explain to me what the post above clearly explains to anyone who can read. I'm still searching for the figures. They are out there because I've seen them several times.

Let me say this, too. I won't spend my time having a public argument with you. If you want to argue something, PM me. I'll disregard it.

There are people who come to this website to argue and nay say minutiae. They repeat back what someone has written, not to understand but to nay say. I won't go down that path with you. When I find the figures I will post them for this thread. But I'm not going to derail the thread by getting into a to - do over the Chronicles Of Riddick - which is not what this thread is about.

The larger point that was being made is that there is no way Prometheus cannot wind up being profitable over the long term, the Chronicles of Riddick was used to make an illustrative point which you should have been able to divine. No, you wanted to impress everyone by playing Mephistopheles : "I am he who denies,"
by arguing a minor factoid within a larger argument.

You have had your say. It's been recorded for the minor posterity that you will have. I'm moving on.

Best

in the world of the global elite i doubt this movie ACTUALLY cost fox anything........and the advertising was probably paid for by sponsers and umbrella corporations..........

 

just sayin

 and coors light beer :P

and im actually sure that the virals were made by ridley scotts own production company by friends and family? and no offense but im pretty sure that lindloff and scott probably put some of their own cash into it ...........i dont think that fox has lost anything and the whole thing has worked out in profit :)

Gahlaktus said:

@tifosi :


Home video sales are a separate accounting bucket.  In simple terms,
for determining if a movie was profitable or not that money doesn't
count.  The funds are never comingled, and revenue for each is very
clearly separated in all agreements pertaining to the film.

That sounds absolutely right to me.

One dollar bill doesn't look different than another dollar bill.  If Fox ran their corporation like that, they'd be out of business.  The people at the studio aren't total idiots, the possibility of a huge take on home video is definitely part of their considerations.  Wonky accounting tidbits are irrelevant.  This would be like saying the possibility of massive merchandise sales wasn't one of the main reason Cars 2 was made because the accounting for merchandise is different.  This argument makes no practical sense whatsoever.

That's nice and all, but home video/merchandise is still a huge motivation behind what projects get green lit, which was the point of this entire argument.  There are plenty of other science fiction properties that will never be revived, because they don't produce that kind of revenue.  Alien, on the other hand, always has, and that's why it has never truly disappeared from Fox's planning.

I'm with cybercat.

I live 15 min outside NYC and the only ads I saw were vitals on the net and TV commercials. Both of which less then a month before release.

It's silly to compare the ad campaign to Dark Knight Rises. I've seen trailers, billboards etc for the dark knight for at least the past year. That was not the case with Prometheus.

Personally I don't think there was enough build up for prometheus. I'm my area they started the heavy trailers only a few weeks before release.

Sure France got a promo train station. But in NY, the largest market in the US, the ads were few and far between.

4http://www.boxoffice.com/articles/2012-06-number-crunch-a-look-at-ridley-scotts-career

I don't think so, that number is going to be more than $200M even if advertising was $50M because there are other distribution costs that need to be added into it.

$50M for adertising + distribution on a possibly low end $130M production budget? The old rule of thumb was 2x production budget for total cost. Some people think that should be closer to 3X now.