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Comment by Mindwipe | Hacker News Reader

> but if they released it, it's pretty certain to make way more than 30 million.

It's pretty unlikely this film will make $30 million, and they would have to spend at least another five to ten million to release it (profit participation from talent, marketing (which is probably contractually obligated), finalising post production, mastering, distribution etc etc.). The effects work is nowhere near done etc.

> And the claim that they're cash strapped after making 1.4 billion on barbie?

Warner has a lot of debt. AT&T dumped all the debt they used to buy the company in with the Warner asset when they sold it to Discovery. That debt is rapidly going to cost a lot to serve interest payments too. Warner needs short term cash, and it needs a lot more than the (good) profits off a single film.

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> It's pretty unlikely this film will make $30 million

It would easily have made $30 million worldwide. Almost certainly domestic. You could question whether it would have made its budget back (70 million) on domestic, but for a family film with existing IP there aren’t really any blockers to clearing 30 million.

> The effects work is nowhere near done etc.

The film is finished, some critics had already seen it.

Are you saying that it would have sold $30 million in tickets, or that WB would have gotten $30 million from the theaters after the theaters get their cut?

Theaters mostly don’t get a cut on these films. WB gets all the box office and the theater makes money on concessions.

> Theaters mostly don’t get a cut on these films. WB gets all the box office and the theater makes money on concessions.

That's absolutely not true, especially internationally.

> and they would have to spend at least another five to ten million to release it

That's very optimistic. P&A (print and advertising, but since movies are now released in digital copies, the print part has become negligible) usually is between half and 100% of the production budget.

> That's very optimistic. P&A (print and advertising, but since movies are now released in digital copies, the print part has become negligible) usually is between half and 100% of the production budget.

I was assuming they would do the absolute bare minimum in advertising tbh, that was mostly print costs and just the basics like providing poster art and standees etc. As you say, if you wanted any effective marketing at all you'd be looking at five to ten times that.

Wait, how is advertising 100% of the budget? Surely you need to also make a movie?

If you have a $200M movie, you'll need to spend $200M in advertising as well.

Ah, the production and advertising budgets are separate, got it, thanks.

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