Continued ...
August 21, 2002 - Summer Wrap

THE DINERO

Sony wins.  Look at the grosses and it’s easy to call.  Sony will have four slots on the season’s Top Ten.  There will be thirteen $100 million movies and every major will have at least one, except for MGM, which doesn’t really release enough movies to count as a major anymore, and including DreamWorks, which is still really a mini-major, with a fairly small release schedule - Revolution is already more prolific – although they have more movies than MGM.

The Top Two films of the summer, Spider-Man and Attack of the Clones will also be easily the most profitable.  Spider-Man will gross about $200 million more than Clone worldwide and that will translate to well over $100 million more in profits. 

But after those two films, the picture gets a lot blurrier.  #6 Scooby Doo and #7 Lilo & Stitch are likely to generate more profit than either the summer’s #3, Men in Black II or #4 Austin Powers in Goldmember. 

The leggiest films of the summer are About A Boy, The Bourne Identity, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron  and Like Mike.  These are the only five films that are likely to gross four times opening domestically.  The least leggy films, grossing less than 2.5 times opening, are Deuces Wild, Halloween: Resurrection, Hey Arnold!, Hollywood Ending and Juwanna Mann.

Here is a rough studio-by-studio look:

DISNEY

Signs
Lilo & Stitch
Reign of Fire
Bad Company
The Country Bears

Domestic Gross:  Around $430 million
Costs – Production - $380 million
Marketing - $150 million
Total - $530 million

DREAMWORKS

Road to Perdition
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
Hollywood Ending

Domestic Gross:  Around $180 million
Costs – Production - $190 million
Marketing - $75 million
Total – $265 million

FOX

Attack of the Clones
Minority Report
Unfaithful
Like Mike

Domestic Gross:  Around $525 million
Costs – Production - $290 million
Marketing - $140 million
Total - $430 million

*Note: Star Wars is owned by LucasFilm and only distributed by Fox for a fee.  Adjusted domestic grosses are about $225 million with costs of about $260 million.

MGM

Windtalkers
The Croc Hunter
Deuces Wild

Domestic Gross:  Around $75 million
Costs – Production - $170 million
Marketing - $60 million
Total – $230 million

NEW LINE

Austin Powers in Goldmember
Jason X

Domestic Gross:  Around $215 million
Costs – Production - $120 million
Marketing - $60 million
Total – $180 million

PARAMOUNT

The Sum of All Fears
K:19
Runteldat
Hey Arnold!

Domestic Gross:  Around $185 million
Costs – Production - $220 million 
Marketing - $90 million
Total – $310 milion

*Note:  K:19 was financed primarily by the company holding the foreign distribution rights.  Adjusted costs are about $230 million

SONY

Spider-Man
Men in Black II
Mr. Deeds
XXX
Stuart Little II
The New Guy
Enough
The Master of Disguise

Domestic Gross:  Around $1 billion
Costs – Production – $670 million
Marketing -  $290 million
Total - $960 million

UNIVERSAL

The Bourne Identity
The Scorpion King
About A Boy
Undercover Brother
Blue Crush

Domestic Gross:  Around $325 million
Costs – Production - $370 million
Marketing - $130 million
Total – $500 million

WARNER BROS.

Murder By Numbers
Scooby Doo
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
Insomnia
Eight Legged Freaks
Blood Work
Juwanna Mann
The Powerpuff Girls Movie
The Adventures of Pluto Nash

Domestic Gross:  Around $380 million\
Costs – Production - $500 million
Marketing – $250 million
Total – $750 million

As you can see, only New Line – with one real release – and Sony outgrossed their costs with domestic box office.  On the flip side, only MGM has costs that are more than triple domestic grosses, which suggests actual losses.  There are also a lot of co-production deals that are not accounted for in this analysis.  

With that in mind, here is a rough look at the studio-by-studio profit picture this summer:

Columbia – $700 million
Disney - $200 million
Fox - $130 million
New Line - $125 million
Paramount - $120 million
Universal - $70 million
DreamWorks - $65 million
Warner Bros. – loss of $50 million
MGM - loss of $90 million

READER OF THE DAY:  The L.A Daily News’ Glenn Whipp kicks in with a little summer perspective here:  “I did a piece last summer ranking the past quarter century of summer films. The best:

1998. Saving Private Ryan, Out of Sight, There’s Something About Mary, Bulworth, The Truman Show, Mulan.  A classic from Spielberg, the best Soderbergh film of his remarkable run, the Farrelly Bros. at their gross-out best, thoughtful entries from Beatty and Weir and a good Disney cartoon. Somewhere something went wrong and studios gave adults some actual choices, which led to the unusual circumstance of critics lists being dominated by summer movies. It might be another 25 years before we have it so good again.

1982 with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Road Warrior, Blade Runner, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Poltergeist, An Officer and a Gentleman. A summer that features rising stars (Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh), Spielberg at his sentimental best and a classic duel of hams (William Shatner and Ricardo Montablan or Richard Gere and Debra Winger - take your pick). Oh - and one of the most influential sci-fi films ever made, Blade Runner, even though few thought so at the time.

E ME:  Tomorrow is THB’s 5^th Anniversary, which we will celebrate with some new additions to the landscape that I hope will make my sixth year my best one ever.  And a chance to win some free stuff too.  How did you see the summer of 2002?