Talk:The Great Wall (film)

How is this film considered a financial loss? Confused.
We have figures of $150 million to develop the film, and $80 million to market the film. Then the film brings in $332 million in revenues. This would indicate a profit of 332-230=$100 million dollars.

Can anyone explain how that is a loss for every company involved? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.254.176.113 (talk) 08:14, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
 * That's not how it works. See this article. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 09:33, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you. So revenues quoted includes un-mentioned theatre costs. 73.254.176.113 (talk)
 * MIND YOU, Re. that NYT link, 1987 was 30 years ago. Before the World Wide Web -- what most people mean when they say "the internet". Before DVDs and even (mostly) before VCRs. And Cable - not to mention players like Amazon and Netflix. However, it is probably still true that "Almost no movies make a profit from being played only in North American theaters.  Profits, if any, come later." Given that the movie only started playing in December 2016 (on The Mainland) - the "domestic" market in this case, it's probably a little soon to start writing the effort off as a loss, in spite of what The Hollywood Reporter would have us believe. See also Box Office Summary Per Territory at The Numbers (note esp. the Report dates) -- "The Numbers" claims to be "the premier provider of movie industry data and research services. Major financial institutions, media companies, investors, data analysis companies and production companies rely on our nearly twenty years of data development and modeling".  They also have a Glossary, if you really want to geek out.
 * Note that, according to The Numbers, "Box Office" = Total money spent on tickets by moviegoers and would NOT include un-mentioned theatre costs. "Production Budget" = the "amount of money it cost make the movie including pre-production, film and post-production, but EXCLUDING distribution costs" like that $80 M USD cost of globally promoting TGW incurred by Universal.
 * AND BUT ALSO ANYWAY My understanding, from a friend that used to work in a theater (so, this is anecdotal, circa 2003-ish ), theaters are stuck getting their profits via their concession stands. Anyone that knows differently is urged to please speak up.
 * PLUS PLUS PLUS Legendary Entertainment just opened a $5.5 BILLION USD Theme Park in Shanghai (2016) which investors seem to think is some sort of rocking great idea (I'm not saying it's not) -- my guess is that top tier spreadsheets are counting on more than a few month's worth of returns in their projections. I bet you they could make a boatload off of just selling reproductions of those wicked gorgeous costumes - even just the helmets! Fb2ts (talk) 18:35, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
 * To reiterate, the link posted by NinjaRobotPirate(Archive Copy) explains that the box office gross indicates what the tickets cost, but the net return to the studies is on average less than 50 percent of that. Also, in China they get only 25% of the gross box office. so even seemingly huge gross revenues from China will be considered a disappointment.
 * I have tried to cleanup the wording but it might be necessary to rephrase more to avoid the kind of reasonable confusion expressed by the reader in the question above. The comments about the film being a lossmaker were first added in March 2017 by an editor who has since been banned for sockpuppetry. The wording was terrible from the start and only small changes were made since. I have attempted to rephrase and better represent what the sources actually say, eg THR said ancilliary revenues "will further stanch the red ink" which I have paraphrased as "offset some of the losses" instead of "cover up the loss" (because cover-up carries has more negative connotations, than trying to offset or cover the cost of losses). -- 109.77.207.247 (talk) 13:02, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

What is it on
What is it on 2603:8080:5F04:CF00:7CD0:5ECA:9097:AD7D (talk) 15:55, 8 January 2023 (UTC)