I Hope You're Ready For A Tale Of Numbers And Woe
Of late, Conrad has been watching some vloggers on Youtube who hate hate hate Disney Studios and everything that comes out of them. These rapscallions have been rubbing their hands and gloating about the studio's box office performance over this year to date. Fair enough, everyone needs a hobby and if you don't like tunnelling, blasting Hollywood studios is a less energy-intensive substitute. Art!
Just to clear things up, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar are all entities under the Walt Disney umbrella. Also, whilst other studios pay for distribution, Disney handles that in-house, so they don't pay for it.
You can see where this is going. Conrad is nothing if not a hair-splitting pedant who loves loves loves to run the numbers, and I decided to get an idea of what this year's 8 Disney films had done at the box office in terms of budget outlay, domestic and global box office returns and profit or loss. I have assumed an average of $100 million for advertising and promotion per film; some will definitely have been higher, others definitely lower, and the disparity ought to balance out.
I have also worked on two assumptions about actual box office returns to the studio. In the - er - 'generous' version, the studio gets back 50% of box office receipts; in the 'strict' version, which some critics claim is closer to the truth, they get only 33% of the receipts.
Yes yes yes I could have done this as an Excel spreadsheet, which would have been BORING without any pictures added in.
BOOJUM! doesn't pretend that this more than an outline of the finances involved. Disney themselves will have an army of auditors and accountants doing the books on this with all sorts of nuances that we don't bother with. Art!
ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA: Budget = $200 million + $100 for Promotion, Publicity and Advertising (hereafter 'PPA') = $300 million. Total Box Office (hereafter 'BO') = $476 million. Domestic = $214 million, Global = $261 million. Under Generous criteria = $238 million to studio. $62 million loss. Under Strict criteria = $158 million to studio. $142 million loss. Art!
No wonder he's weeping
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOLUME 3: Budget = $250 million + $100 for PPA = $350 million. Total Box BO = $845 million. Domestic = $358 million, Global = $486 million. Under Generous criteria = $423 million to studio. $72 million profit. Under Strict criteria = $281 million to studio. $69 million loss. This is the one film Conrad would like to see, out of this list. Art!
THE LITTLE MERMAID: Budget = $300 million + $100 for PPA = $400 million. Total Box BO = $569 million. Domestic = $298 million, Global = $271 million. Under Generous criteria = $285 million to studio. $115 million loss. Under Strict criteria = $189 million to studio. $211 million loss. The overall budget for this one ballooned from the originally quoted $250 million up to the higher total. Art!
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| Art! Stop crushing on a cartoon! |
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| There were people frothing about her being black. NOT ABOUT BEING HALF-FISH. |
ELEMENTAL: Budget = $200 million + $100 for PPA = $300 million. Total Box BO = $495 million. Domestic = $154 million, Global = $341 million. Under Generous criteria = $248 million to studio. $52 million loss. Under Strict criteria = $165 million to studio. $135 million loss. As you can see, far more popular abroad than in South Canada, for - er - reasons. Art!
INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY: Budget = $300 million + $100 for PPA = $400 million. Total Box BO = $383 million. Domestic = $174 million, Global = $209 million. Under Generous criteria = $192 million to studio. $208 million loss. Under Strict criteria = $127 million to studio. $273 million loss. Ouch. The writer claimed that it was going to do better than the original trilogy put together. Waiter! get me a pint of what she's drinking. Art!
Art, are you sure about this?
HAUNTED MANSION: Budget = $150 million + $100 for PPA = $250 million. Total Box BO = $117 million. Domestic = $67 million, Global = $49 million. Under Generous criteria = $59 million to studio. $191 million loss. Under Strict criteria = $39 million to studio. $211 million loss. This one kind of crept in under the Hateradar. For a film with the most modest budget so far, it realllllly tanked. Art!
Based on a South Canadian theme-park affair. Didn't travel well.
THE MARVELS: Budget = $275 million + $100 for PPA = $375 million. Total Box BO = $187 million. Domestic = $78 million, Global = $110 million. Under Generous criteria = $94 million to studio. $280 million loss. Under Strict criteria = $62 million to studio. $313 million loss. You may quibble about this one, as it's still showing at the box office. My argument is that it's overall take isn't going to shift significantly enough from $187 million to exclude it as finished. That 'Budget' is also inaccurate, as it's from last year and doesn't include 4 weeks of re-shoots done in 2023; the actual total is likely to be close to $300 million plus. Art!
I have no idea, either
WISH: Budget = $200 million + $100 for PPA = $300 million. Total Box BO = $50 million. Domestic = $33 million, Global = $17 million. Under Generous criteria = $25 million to studio. $175 million loss. Under Strict criteria = $16 million to studio. $283 million loss. You may quibble about this one, too, as it's still showing at the box office. Well, after 9 days on release, it's only making just over $500,000 at the box office per day, so those figures aren't going to change much. Art!
<insert obvious joke here>
This presents a balance sheet of $1083 loss and $72 profit under the Generous criteria, for an overall box office loss in 2023 of <drum roll> $1,011 million. Wow. Just wow. Under the Strict criteria the loss totals $1637 million.
As I said, this is a pretty crude analysis BUT it does give you a ballpark figure for Disney's box office this year. Conrad thinks it's fair to say "It's not good". Art!
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| My impeccably-written notes |
Gosh, I think that's the longest Intro I've written to date. And based strictly on factual data, too. I think we need a bit of variety now.
Russian To The Finnish Line
Ha! I amuse myself sometimes. Okay, the Ruffians, because they are petty and childish in government, have taken to pouting that Finland SUOMI NOBLE SUOMI has 1) joined NATO (and increased the NATO border with Ruffia by 800 miles) and 2) doesn't give a stuff about Chipmunk Cheeks or Horseface bloviating about how wickedly unfair it all is. Art!
In a quite bizarre act of retaliation, they have been re-routing Middle East migrants all the way up to the Finnish border from Saint Petersburg, driving them to within 20 miles of the border and then giving them bikes (!) to ride the last stretch. Walking to the border is banned, so you have to pedal or push your bike.
The Finns, understandably annoyed, closed the border with Ruffia. The bicyclists, arriving at a closed border in -20⁰ Centigrade, collectively ditched their bikes and caught buses back to St. Petersburg. Art!
If you have any suggestions about what to do with a bike-mountain, please contact the nearest Finnish embassy or consulate.
"City In The Sky"
It turns out that the Doctor has been just a wee bit manipulative and cunning, which is so shocking I can't believe it. No, wait a minute, I can.
What had his reply been? That it was essential to see if the
population up there could survive on Earth amidst all the micro-organisms that
didn’t exist on the arcologies, to which end he’d brought a fit, healthy adult
as a guinea-pig. If Alex couldn’t
survive, then the survivors in orbit wouldn’t be able to either, and they were
all doomed.
Filtered by his illness, this had seemed enormously unfair to Alex, and
he’d mumbled a complaint before they reached the big glass offices of the
town’s doctor. The Doctor had sternly
warned him not to imagine that he’d really put another person’s life at risk
needlessly and that the Tardis was only a few minutes walk away if needed,
while the grizzled Euclan doctor had prescribed water, quinine and rest. With a touch of persuasion and low, whispered
conversation that Alex couldn’t make out, the doctor had agreed to let the
mechanic stay in the waiting room to ensure he didn’t get any worse. Mike had exchanged a slip of paper that made
the doctor seem happier, and then he’d been left on his own, in a quiet corner
of the bright building with his jug of water and the horribly bitter medicine.
Hmmm tough love?
Resupplied!
Conrad dropped in to Sainsbo's on his way back to The Mansion, to stock up on loose-leaf Darjeeling and paprika. I'm going through lots of both at the moment, thanks to a sober December and the Sunday Stew needing a flavouring. Art!
A Chrismas tea-tree, as described by Degsy. I did warn him I'd nick that, and I have.
Finally -
Just to let you know that I've had to start that game of "Siege" from scratch, since I completely missed that the attackers can have up to 3 Scaling Ladders, and, more importantly, that the drawbridge ought to have been raised at the end of Turn 3, not halfway through Turn 4, when the attackers had crossed it already. Art!
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| The scaling-ladder party |
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