GAME PLAN Scores Winning Touchdown

I'm not surprised Game Plan did well. It was kid friendly and The Rock has his fans. There is also no competition for this kind of movie right now. The other films out now are dark and cynica so the audience wanted something light hearted.l

Yea i agree jpp, there hasn't been a new kids movie out for weeks now, the Game Plan was poignantly released.

I hope Sony pulls its head out of its ass after raking in the dough for Across the Universe. I work at a movie theatre and more than a dozen people have already asked whether or not we're getting it; I sure hope we do.

Actually 22 million ain't great. As I told you mid week, in respect to Resident Evil's 24 million take for the weekend box office, last week. That box office score was a joke...especially since it had several mid range so-called stars in the film. Anyway...as I stated, Resident Evil, if it was able to manage a 40 percent to 50 percent drop off at the box office this weekend, that only then could we officially call it a hit. Well, this weekend's box office has proven Resident Evil to be a failure, having had a 2/3's drop off. And by next weekend, we can expect the same. Look for it to draw in about 2.5 million.

At this point, that movie will be lucky if it draws in 50 million at the box office by the time its release ends in theatres. And judging by the box office of Game Plan, its box office will only bring in about 40 million total by the end of its run. So all this talk of success is only hype!!!

That said, the theatrical releases of movies like Resident Evil and Game Plan are simply commercials for their eventual DVD releases...as the venue of DVD is where they will make most of their money. My point??? These films are nothing but grandiose straight to DVD releases...and the studios place them in theatres in order to make them seem more legitimate than they really are.

Good for the Rock...in all the movies I have seen in him I find him entertaining and lightyears ahead of any of the 80's action stars in terms of acting ability. I am glad it did well...even though I have no desire to see it. I'd like to see him succeed in the movie biz.

Side note...retire the RE thing. Never saw one in the theatre. MW is right...dvd rental for RE 3...might catch Game Plan on HBO or something.

Haven't been to a movie since Transformers and won't until Saw 4. Can't wait for that one!

I thought "The Kingdom" was terrific; Peter Berg's really growing into an excellent director. The actors really turned in riveting performances, too. I'm not surprised it finished behind Game Plan; it's not a family film and a lot of people might shy away from this movie because it's too close to reality. Most of the time I go to the moveis to escape every day life for a couple of hours, so The Kingdom isn't going to be for everyone. It was a terrific movie though and made for great conversation with the gang over drinks afterward.

Think the Heartbreak Kid's going to be #1 next week? I do, unfortunately. I hate Ben Stiller movies (with the exception ofm keeping the Faith). The kids saw a spot for The Seeker, so I know I'll be seeing that this weekend.

I think Resident Evil is doing as expected. If you check the box office for the first two RE movies, they both took about a two-thirds drop in the second week of release. That's par for the course when dealing with most R-rated horror movies. In terms of pure numbers, it opened almost identically to the second RE movie - $23M opening weekend, $8M second weekend. The budget is $45M, and assuming a similar worldwide box office as the second installment ($130M), the studio will make a decent profit from the theatrical run alone. Of course the RE movies are not monster hit franchises like Spider-Man or Harry Potter, but this installment is clearly doing "as expected" for the studio. The studio realizes that opening these movies during the slow months is profitable, and it's going to take a significant box office stumble before they stop producing them (or lowering them to genuine direct-to-DVD status).

You''ll remember that ticket prices are higher, and the economy worse than it was a few years back, so when you take that into account--and if we are to trust your figures...the new Resident Evil film is actually doing worse than the second film in the series. Resident Evil, and its sequels could have each been shot on a tv budget similar to that spent on the typical high concept two hour tv pilot, plus one additional episode--about 13 million dollars, with the typical average hour long episode costing 1.5 to 2 million, that would bring it to about 14 to 15 million dollars.

Now...theatres as you may know, get half of all box office receipts right off the top...then you have to add in the cost of marketing, film print dupilcations, and distribution...as well as the licensing cost of this movie series which was paid to the game maker. On average, a film has to earn double the cost of the advertising, promotions, prints, and distribution before it goes into profit--again, a profit which is shared equally with theatres. All in all, this film will only go into profit on DVD, and in broadcast tv, cable and satellite after markets--that is, unless they are lying about the budget...which film studios often do. And seriously, I would be surprised if they spent over 20 million dollars on this thing!!!

Metal i've got to correct you here: theatres make almost no money off of BO receipts, that's concession's job. Most theatre chains are lucky to negotiate 20/80 of box office take.

And I'm not really sure what you're arguing here. I get that you don't like the Resident Evil movies, but this is their niche, mid-September releases when there aint shit else going on. I thought Extinction was enjoyable and I'm sure others thought so too. It won't be the last.

That's not the information I have been hearing from theatre chains, studios as well as the press for years. And of course theatres make most of their money from concessions, hence the reason why they charge so much money for them.

PS--After checking CNN Money, it appears we are both right!!! Check the story below for further information:

Small Business

Why does that popcorn cost so much?

Think you'd like to run a movie theater? Better butter up on snack sales.
March 12, 2002: 2:07 PM EST
By Annelena Lobb

It's huge! It's gigantic! It's the biggest box of Snowcaps you've ever seen! And it's got a price to match.

What is it with movie theater snacks, anyway? There's got to be something wrong when a "small" popcorn bag is the size of the average movie-goer's head.

What's wrong is that you thought you were going to a movie theater. When you go to the movies, you're really going to a candy store.

"Owners joke about being in the candy business," said theater owner Howard Edelman, proprietor of Movieland Cinemas, an independent string of cinemas in the Long Island, NY-area. "If you didn't have concessions at a movie theater, there would be no movie theater. We have movies just to get people in to buy popcorn and candy, where we make our money."

Tickets
Most of the money from ticket sales goes back to the movie studio. A film booker leases a movie to a particular theater for a set period of weeks. The percentage of ticket sales that the studio takes decreases on each week that a movie is in the theater. If the screening was arranged by an independent middleman, he also takes a slice. So the movie has to pull in sizeable audiences for several weeks in order for theater owners to make any serious profits.

Where movie theaters make their money
• Movie tickets: From 20 to 55 percent of ticket price, increasing the longer the movie is shown there.

• Snack sales: For theater owners, this is where the real money is made. Concession companies may pay up front to run this part of the business.

• Trailers: Movie studios pay theaters to show trailers based on how many people saw them.

• Adverstising: Theaters split the $50 to $100 fee for ad slides before movies with local advertising agents.

During the film's opening week, the studio might take 70 to 80 percent of gross box office sales. By the fifth or sixth week, the percentage the studio takes will likely shrink to about 35 percent, said Steven Krams, president of International Cinema Equipment Co.

If you've got a blockbuster like Titanic or The Lord of the Rings, with audiences that keep streaming in for weeks, everybody's happy -- especially theater owners.

The munchies

That's why the extras -- especially the concession stand -- are so important. Without pricey snacks, most theaters couldn't stay in business.

Studios also pay theaters to show trailers, Edelman said. But they pay for them after the fact, based on the number of people who saw them.

"Studios send a couple of new trailers every week and they send new commercials. We have to call in our numbers every night to the film companies, and they give you 'x-amount' per person," Edelman explained.

Finally, tidbits like local advertising can generate revenue for the theater as well. Most theaters have slide projectors with ads that play before the movie begins. An advertising agency charges local businesses about $50 to $100 a month to show their ad, and the movie theater takes half, Edelman said.

Costs
The costs of running a theater include the price of building the theater (or leasing it), utilities, equipment and maintenance, the cost of leasing the actual films, and the cost of paying their employees.

And theater owners have to weigh the benefits of certain cost-reduction strategies. Concession companies, for example, may give $25,000 to $50,000 to the building of a new screen, if the theater will contract with them for several years and split profits made on snacks, Krams said.

Kaybar: Yes there will be more Resident Evil films...as we both know the studio wouldn't be making these movies without a logical reason. Again, as I said...they, the studios, are releasing these kinds of low brow, low budget films, like Game Plan and Good Luck Chuck, etc.--which are really only worth straight to DVD status, to give them some form of legitimacy in regard to marketing the DVD later, and in other formats. The studios have learned that if you release a film to the theatres before DVD, it tends to increase interest in a movie overall, thus increasing after market profits such as DVD Sales, Rentals, Cable, Satellite, Pay-Per-View and Broadcast TV Sales...again, for films that should have gone straight to DVD in the first place.