 Welcome to the Adam does movies podcast. I'm Adam and today we're gonna go over raw numbers We're gonna talk box office budgets and mainly why things have gotten so out of control in Hollywood A lot of movies are starting to bomb lately in the last couple years We've seen more flops from Disney than in the entire history of the company and the main reason why is Because these these budgets are insanely high We're not even talking a hundred million. We're talking two hundred million plus These aren't Titanic. These aren't avatar. This is like turning red or Luca smaller scale pictures that had no real way of recouping that cost especially when a lot of them went straight to Disney plus or had a Movie theater tandem release on Disney plus or peacock or hulu or Amazon Prime or Apple TV plus like there There's just so many so many ways to distribute this crap now And it's harder and harder to get people to run out and go to the theaters to see them Recently Tom Cruise starred in yet another Mission Impossible film Mission Impossible 7 dead reckoning This movie for all intensive purposes should have been a huge hit for cruise He's coming off of Maverick a movie that appealed to everyone on the planet It basically saved last summer as far as the box office went really kept I mean Tom Cruise was already a major star, but he catapulted him even further Showcase, you know, yes, this old dog still has plenty of tricks this guy can still do it He's got his own stunts going on He's in the cult. He's in the cockpit flying the plane and here he is again as Ethan Hunt Taking a motorcycle off of a ramp into the unknown Movies budget two hundred and ninety million just shy of three hundred. It's a part one of a two-part saga That's part one of the problems this movie had going in Audiences do not want to pay to watch half of a film. I Have no problem with it. I'm a movie fan. I also love the Mission Impossible series But there are a lot of general moviegoers that only see one or two movies a year And they don't want to feel ripped off putting down $12 $16 just for a movie ticket Oftentimes they're going with a family that number starts to triple quadruple you throw a soda in the soda that makes you throw popcorn Next thing, you know, you have a $70 tab and that's even generous at some I've I've been in lines Where a woman's tab was well over a hundred dollars for some popcorn some slushies a couple tickets it adds up really fast And so dead reckoning announcing up front. Yeah, you're only getting half of a movie You're gonna lose a lot of people that are even gonna go out They'll just say it. Well, I know it's gonna be on Paramount Plus or something down the road I might as well wait. There's no reason for me to throw down my hard-earned cash for half of an experience The other major issue They weren't foreseeing Barbie and Oppenheimer Cruise controlling together Tom Cruise controlling. It's too bad. They couldn't three-way this situation Tom Cruise went out and saw both those films. I remember I saw the the tweets that he put out He had his movie ticket in front of the posters. He said go out and see these movies Problem was they did and they they bypassed his film for them They needed an Oppenheimer Oppenheimer Barbie mission impossible, you know, like trilogy complete package deal Because the Barbenheimer marketing it worked so well. I did it I know a lot of people that did it was almost a test go out to Oppenheimer Then go see Barbie have a six-hour experience by the time you see the trailers and drive all around to the theater And I mean it was it was awesome and a lot of people had a great time If they could have done a Barbenheimer colon dead reckoning you could have maybe had a three-way situation, but alas for Tom Cruise Those eyes were wide shut and people quickly dismiss the film because there was new stuff out and Again being that part one. I think I think really soured a lot of individuals even though Cruise is all over it Another thing and this has been going on a lot lately with the mission of possible movies Others as well, but I'm really getting annoyed of these trailers giving away the entire section of a film That should be a reason to get people into the seats Last time he's hanging off the side of a plane. He's holding his breath under water He's he's dropping out of a plane from outside the Earth's atmosphere over Paris Everybody already saw the stunt before they went into the movie and this one was the worst of them all I don't know how many times I saw on YouTube or tick-tock via some short of Crews going up the ramp showing the whole section doing a behind-the-scenes Showing the reaction of the crew members. I was sick of this stunt before it even happened in the theater What they should have done is showed everyone get hyped up for this Show him start to head towards the mountain on the motorcycle and then cut it there Make people go watch the film for the final shot. Why are you giving away the goods up front? Come on. This is this is marketing 101 people A lot of factors going against him, but the biggest factor is the price tag $290 million are you out of your mind? Are you out of your mind? I brought up some of the data on this But the big takeaway is so far worldwide. I'm looking 448 million five hundred thirty three thousand the movie has only grossed 448 million plus some change That sounds like an impressive figure if your movie didn't cost almost three hundred million to make now People listening will say wait. I'm doing the math Adam I'm doing the math 450 million that that seems a little bit higher Than 300 million like quite a bit higher. The problem is and I've explained it before I'll be quick Most of the time for these big blockbusters They need to make double or higher than that double or greater than that So if it's a 300 million dollar film, they need to bring in 600 million just to break Even oftentimes a film like Barbie Mission Impossible a lot of marketing behind it Two and a half times is what they're saying because the movie theater takes their cut off of each movie ticket Not much, but it's enough to make a big dent when you have a lot of theaters chains circulating plus It's just marketing Marketing takes a massive amount of cash to keep fueling the fire keep it in the ethos keep it in the air So you have social media pushes you got annoying banner ads that you see on the sides of websites you have Influencers not me if people that are willing to sell themselves short for a goodie bag or maybe some access to early screeners They're going out there talking about the movies. They're getting hyped red carpet affairs Spots on TV movie trailers press junket tours all of this stuff falls under marketing and it is massive Giant billboards in Central Square It's a lot and Unfortunately, this is looked at as a failure a almost half a billion dollar film is Looked at as a failure and the sucky thing about this is it's part one During a writer's strike an actor's strike the movies not complete for part two Which is another thing that's gonna turn people off from going there might not even be a part two at the rate This is now. I think Tom Cruise is is Got pride and ego and he's gonna make sure this shit gets done. Plus. He just loves movies He wants to see that this is his thing. This is his baby He's gonna make sure it gets done, but I'm guessing one of the big things They do is they start to cut back on that budget if possible. I don't even know if it is possible at this point It's just disappointing It's really disappointed and like I said, this is not a one-off thing going on The last fast in the furious fast 10 was a dumb amount of money to make I have the numbers here Let me bring them up quick fast in the furious 10 release this year a production budget of 340 million Now granted, there's a lot of I guess there's a lot of talent There's a lot of actors in these movies that have been in a lot of fast in the furious films So yeah, I mean Charlie's their owns in this at times. You got Brie Larson in the mix now Vin Diesel, of course There there are a lot Michelle Rodriguez Luda. I mean Ludacris is probably paid via Nos energy drinks. I don't know what they're paying Ludacris to be in these films I think it's Ludacris how much money they've spent on these films though. So 340 million the gross worldwide $720 million now that is right in that sweet spot. It's right there to be a profitable movie, but not by much Granted, this is a theatrical release So we do get to take in into account Blu-ray sales digital purchases Any sort of I don't know happy meal. Did they make happy meals for fast in the furious 10? Fast in the furious toys. Is there a is there a toy line of fast 10? There is a video game I don't know if that makes any profit for the film though. I doubt it I doubt the studio gets a cut of that. Maybe maybe they do regardless Disney is the best at this through the king of making a movie and then pushing a bunch of merch based off the film and Different kind of things that they can generate more income from so it's not just a movie theater thing for Disney They will find ways to eke out money, but if they have a long hill to climb it's gonna be impossible at points So for fast 10 They did make a lot of money. It looks like they probably made You know some some bucks back to make a sequel, but it wasn't by a lot 340 million went into this. What is the budget going to? I really don't understand on some of these Avatar the way of the water is of course the success story the film cost 460 million dollars We're almost half a billion territory 460 million of Course it made two billion three hundred and nineteen thousand nine hundred and seventy-two Well beyond what it needed to become a profitable film I remember James Cameron was interviewed and he essentially said yeah the success of this movie is Gonna be determined on if we make any more Even though he's already been working on avatar 3 4 and I believe a little bit of 5 This is a massive franchise And at number 2 he was willing to just set fire to it all because if they can't recoup that cost That's just gonna say the future ones are gonna do worse If you can't pull people in for your first sequel, there's no way they're coming back for a third fourth or fifth but yeah people came out and I was kind of foolish about this film when it was announced 14 years ago and as years went by I kept saying in my head in James Cameron we trust in James Cameron We trust he's going to save theaters. It's not gonna bomb. It's James Cameron. The guy did the abyss The guy did Terminator Terminator 2 Aliens the hit sequel to alien true lies Avatar one Titanic he does not miss their all box office gold However, because of the massive amount of time that went by because of coven Because theaters were having a hard time filling seats even big popular movies. I was nervous And I wanted it to succeed even though I eventually saw it in theaters and did not like Avatar 2 I still wanted it to succeed because I don't want to see theaters go away and It proved people are willing to still go out and spend the cash if they know what they're getting With mission impossible. They knew they were only getting half a film a lot of them and They saw a lot of the highlights in the trailer with Avatar the way of the water the trailers weren't great, but they showcased what people can expect beautiful blue ocean scenery Amazing new creatures some of the Navi back again in the mix. We got the evil corporation the Marines coming after them a three-hour film Massive budget James Cameron. They know they're gonna get an experience that they cannot possibly get at home in 3d with surround sound I mean some people can get it at home, but for the most part it's still it's a movie ride, right? It's something you almost strap in like you're on a roller coaster and you're just ready for Cameron to take you wherever he wants And that's why this movie made so much stupid money. It made funny money Avatar is not going anywhere and that's sad to me, but also cool for James Cameron I guess on the other biggest budget success stories. We have Avengers Endgame $400 million it grossed 2,794 this is the second highest grossing film of all time That's amazing But it's also incredibly expected. This was the swan song for the MCU for most people this was the creation of 20 films or 24 for whatever it is I don't know. It doesn't matter of a massive amount of movies in different phases coming together Telling the end of Tony Stark's story closing down shop on Captain America Finishing out Black Widow. It's doing a lot of different things and for the most part it knocked it out of the park So people went multiple times to watch this film great word of mouth Kept it circulating for weeks and that's how you have a multiple billion dollar success story Couple more in the positive then we'll talk more about where things have really started to go bad Pirates of the Caribbean on Stranger Tides again another one where it's really piggybacking out for the success of the others You can say the same for Fast and the Furious. You can say the same for Mission Impossible. It's just These impossible budgets are really starting to hamper things And I don't know if the Mission Impossible movies ever I don't think they reach the same dumb amounts of money that some of these other franchises do I think they have loyal people that go to them But they're not really broadening the tent as much as like Fast and the Furious did over the years But Pirates of the Caribbean, that's a that's an over billion dollar worldwide gross off of a what do we got here? 379 million dollar budget. Wow. That's a big budget the man. That's crazy The the difference from 1 billion to 2.7 billion between Avengers Endgame and Pirates off of just a few more million dollars spent in the budget arena Wild stuff Yeah, fast time I talked about Force Awakens 306 million to make 2 billion dollar revenue Everybody wanted to see a new Star Wars. We were clamoring for it. This was gonna be a return to basics It's gonna be a return to the foundation and in a lot of ways it was because it was basically the same movie as Star Wars A New Hope all over again And I was okay with that. I think most people were okay with that. It was a it was a good reset It was a good reset and then it was all reset again two more times over came a complete shit show Okay, let's look at movies with the lowest budgets to earn 1 million at the box office That's an interesting weird thing. So clerks Made the clerks budget was twenty seven thousand dollars and it grossed three million eight hundred and ninety four That's Kevin Smith's first film first big movie That's awesome. I didn't realize it did so well Super size me that was the documentary of sorts on McDonald's the guy that ate nothing But McDonald's for breakfast lunch and dinner for a year gained a bunch of weight got super sick that movie costs 65,000 to make and it grossed 22 million dollars damn That did way better than I thought This is what this is another area I wanted to get into because this is really one that a Lot of different genres should look at as far as how to make money the smart way So when I look at some of these Lowest budgets and see that over a million dollar revenue I'm seeing a lot of horror films a lot of scary movies on here a racer head We have a Ghost story we have native the living dead We you can think of Blair Witch project You can think of what was that other one paranormal activity These are all movies that had shoe string budgets and made millions of dollars at the box office Based on showing very little footage and an amazing word-of-mouth Gorilla campaign marketing strategy The little footage shown is the same concept. They did in Jaws. It's the same concept They did an alien alien has a brilliant trailer by the way even the og terminator and terminator 2 had really smart Trailers that didn't give a lot away just enough showing that new technology Showing the threat down the horizon Giving you a couple teases of what you can expect the final product to be and that's really how you get people to come out Again these blockbusters with their hundreds of millions of dollars of budget thrown in Give away so much of the movie and they overblot them to hell and back most scary flicks Are around an hour and a half to two hours to two hours being on the on the heavy end They get in they get out they give people that ride that experience that That dopamine hit and then they let them pack up and head home for the night When movies now come out fast 10 is like two and a half hours long Mission impossible seven is two and a half hours long. These movies are too Long for their own good and that's another reason that they're repelling people from going to them I I kind of cringe when I see a film is about three hours long because I have to drive there Which is 20 minutes. I have to drive home, which is 20 minutes. I have to wait through 17 to 30 minutes of trailers I don't know why I started with 17. What a specific amount of time But there's always a massive amount of trailers so that three hour tour suddenly becomes four and a half hours for me That's a lot of time I got shit to do and then I have to review this movie I'm spending a half a day just on one film Meanwhile for movies an hour and a half. I can watch two hour and a half films That that that's more value to me getting different experiences And yes if a movie is Fantastic or it warrants the runtime for some people like myself Lord of the Rings are our peak Some of my favorite trilogy one of my favorite trilogies. I love Middle Earth. I love these characters I like that it takes its time. Let's everything breathe. I'm just happy being part of this stuff I can see why it turns others off though, but not everything should be at this scale I don't think a fast 10 movie I don't think a fast nefarious movie has any earthly right being over two hours. That's just dumb It's just ready and be a two-parter Come on. Oh my gosh Where we got it biggest money losers? Let's look let's see what we have here in the biggest money losers section based on absolute loss on worldwide earnings This is by the way from This is box office mojo, I think All right, so the number one slot is turning red I might have mentioned this I don't know if I did but this is Pixar slash Disney Maybe it's just Disney. I can never tell anymore. What's what what falls under what rooftop? I think it's Pixar Disney owns everything. It doesn't matter The approximate Let's see. What is the expense on this? Oh my god. This was a hundred seventy five million dollars to make It lost Let's see here profit negative 167 million Approximate income seven million five hundred fifty-five. I'm not sure how this is actually laid out This is a little weird to me. So jungle cruise for instance has approximate expense of two hundred and sixty four million And it made 114 okay, I see what they're doing so the profit loss is a hundred and fifty million dollars Holy crap Wait turning red only made seven million dollars off of it a budget of a hundred and seventy five million How was that? Oh? That's because okay. So it must have gone to really limited Theater screenings for maybe a day or two It must have gone to theaters the same day. They released it on Disney Plus They basically shot the thing and they shot that red panda in the head. It was dead on arrival They did this for Luca too. I believe I think Luca didn't even go to theaters They did it with a few movies lately and I just cannot fathom the reason why outside of we got to pull people to our Disney Plus platform But that's a foolish way of doing it and I mean, I don't know how you recoup that cost Mars needs moms. Oh My god hundred seventy million to make that pile of crap It lost a hundred forty three million because it only pulled in twenty six million that would look terrible Mulan another example of a Disney Plus movie now this one was a little different I remember this went to theaters But you also had the opportunity to watch it day one on Disney Plus if you ponied up an additional $20 on top of your Disney Plus thing. I don't think they've done this ever since they tried it a couple times Cruella might have been another one. They did it with I know they did it a couple times black widow, maybe Regardless this thing lost a lot of money. It lost a hundred and forty million because it costs two hundred million to make What about Mulan has two hundred million dollars worth of budget in it? I feel like I'm losing my mind. Is there some massive money laundering scheme happening over at Disney is Mickey taking Taking half that money for crack What's going on over there Mickey? What are you hiding? Oh? Jesus Wonder Woman 1984 so these numbers are really screwed up Okay, we're falling in weird territory here because a lot of the movies. I'm seeing on this list really are Not failures in the same light that's something like dead reckoning is becoming one right now These are failures because of really poor decision-making Releasing these day in and day out on HBO Max Which is now just called max for some dumb reason at the same time as they released at the theaters mortal combat was one of those Godzilla versus Kong Space Jam to a new legacy, which is on here funny enough Space Jam a new legacy It was 187 million to make it only made 76 million at the theaters, so it lost a hundred and ten million dollars West Side Story now this one did go to theaters and it stayed in theaters and no one went to see it in theaters 143 million dollar Steven Spielberg film Only made 38 million. I'm sorry 143 million is what it cost. I think it said 143,000 It lost a hundred and four million dollars That's really sad because oh well, I should I didn't see it I was gonna say it's really sad that people didn't support it. It's Steven Spielberg. I didn't support it. I'm not big on musicals West Side Story didn't appeal to me at all. I wasn't going to every major release when it came out I would have if it came out today I would have gotten seen it just to review it on the channel But when it came out, I was you know probably busy doing something else. I still haven't watched it and I heard it's amazing Heard it's an incredible film and I love Steven Spielberg films It's I I also haven't seen the fablemen's and it's about Steven Spielberg growing up with this family Making movies it appeals to me at every sense of the word, but I also heard it's like two and a half hours long and I just it came out at a time when there was a bunch of other things out I wasn't even sure when it was in theaters Everything about the launch of that film was very confusing because that it early releases at some places and not at others Just just bad all around bad The Suicide Squad now this is not Suicide Squad This is the Suicide Squad by James Gunn a lot of people Especially in the Zack Snyder fan base will say that movie was a massive failure And they're just not gonna remember I guess they're just not gonna bring up the fact that this is another one of those Same-day releases on HBO Max Now the movie still managed actually to make 99 million in the theater But it was a 218 million dollar project loses a hundred and nineteen Because I didn't go see it in theaters. It was right there across from my couch. Why would I drop? $15 or more with my family when I have free access to it because they pay a monthly subscription It was so insane that they were doing this COVID was going on though. This was a COVID movie a lot of these were so what do you do? You hold off on it you find some sort of way to make people rent it at home. They tried a lot of different things Lightyear this is a straight. This was a straight theater release Buzz Lightyear movie 235 million to make Why are these Pixar movies getting so expensive? The income was a hundred and twelve million So it lost one hundred and twenty three million Dollars Lightyear is another one where I just completely scratch my head at what they were thinking on this film It did not look exciting. It didn't look fun. I'm not sure who the target audience was Pixar set out to make basically their version of a Christopher Nolan interstellar At least that's how they presented it in the trailers The final product was actually far less grand You spend most of the time on a single planet Lightyear is kind of relegated to a background character for half of it It has this really silly plot and these really dumb scooby-doo-esque characters But not in the fun way just in the klutzy dumb shaggy way I hated this movie. I didn't get its appeal And from a practicality standpoint, I just don't know like in the story department What they thought was appealing to young boys who were clearly the the audience for this Because my son Likes ninja turtles. He likes superheroes. He likes toy story But he doesn't want to see Buzz Lightyear kind of stoically You know running around on a planet and then falling into bad times and having to get saved by the dumbass crew that he's with He wants to see lightyear with some cool laser guns Jumping away from explosions popping the wings out taking bad guys out fighting aliens going to different planets It's not that deep It's not that hard But uh, you know, maybe if they would have done that would have made some money Wonder Woman 1984 uh colossal disaster of a film total pile of shit that didn't make money Moonfall failed we got onward on the list John Carter most of the things I just listed were the same day in day out releases, but John Carter This is a special kind of bad. This was an almost 300 million dollar epic saga film from disney lost a hundred Lost 112 million it made 183 million which is an express. It's an impressive amount But when a movie costs that much You only have down to go unless you're James Cameron This is just the taste of some of the movies over the years That have failed to really reach an audience or I shouldn't even say reach an audience If you're generating 183 million you have reached an audience Just not enough of one Because these movies are so bloated and cost so much money I'm looking at this indiana jones and the doll of destiny came out a few weeks back the budget for this 300 million dollars for an indiana jones movie That's double what any indiana jones movie should ever cause especially when we're talking practical effects When we're talking about a movie that should go quickly get in and get out under two hours But dial of destiny does everything wrong. It costs way too much It uses a lot of cg and it's over two. It's two and a half hours. I think Another one of those films that I don't know what you're trying to accomplish here They think that bigger is better every time. They think that you have to always push further out We can't do 90 minutes people that doesn't appeal to anyone people need to be in the theaters for two hours Plus they don't feel like they're getting their money's worth wrong Wrong Look at horror films most of them. No, you got to be done under two hours And they make a lot of money the insidious franchise. There are five films I thought there were like two They don't cost much to make and they make a ton of money They're never over two hours. They always are the same thing and they always make money It's it's not that hard I don't understand Oh my god. Well, there you have it. That's just a little bit of my rants on what's been going on lately Movies are costing an insane amount to make and it's not going to the actors often I'm seeing some of these movies. I the haunted mansion is out right now. Let me look at this quick the haunted mansion budget Oh my god, this movie costs 157 million 157 million to make this 157.8. So really 158 million. Let's see what it's gross 2023 gross 24 million In the united states And 91 million in other talent territories for a full gross. I'm sorry 9.1 The full worldwide gross as of now for the haunted mansion. It came out a few days ago is $33 million Off a what budget 157.8 million this movie is tanking hard Another example of spending way too much on something that's so Niche based off a disney ride. We already had a haunted mansion movie with eddie murphy back in the late 90s early 2000s nobody cared then They're certainly not going to care now I mean really any movie that's coming out I could I could google week to week and probably find a film that's falling on its face The flash Another one that I was honestly shocked the flash Budget, let's see the flash budget is 200 million dollars The flash gross Oh my god 55 million 55 million that's That's brutal this movie These movies are all tanking They got so much money Okay, I could go on forever. I'm gonna wrap it up You get the point. Let's calm down. We have a writer's strike going on We got an actor's strike going on right now. This is time for hollywood to maybe think Hey, we could still pay these guys a fair amount of money and maybe shave some of the cost on whatever the hell they're doing Maybe pay the coffee guy a little less Because he's clearly making too much to get the starbucks run all right, maybe maybe Get a screenwriter that can write a confidence script in under two hours You can show it at more theaters. You get more screen times more showings every day Then you do a three-hour film Simple math you give people more options more times to go to a movie. You might get them there Okay All right, let me know your thoughts. Do you agree movies have gotten bloated? Both financially speaking and runtime speaking or are you like no adam? This is just the wave of the future. We got to spend tons of money if we don't have massive explosions at a huge scale all the time We are not going to make profit movies have to be over two hours long. Otherwise people won't go see them even though I've Brought out a lot of points that I think speak to the contrary You are free to give me your thoughts in the comments below if you agree with me I'd love to hear it too. I always like when people agree Like the video if you like the video and you're watching on youtube if you're on spotify or apple apple podcasts or wherever Feel free to um share it around and become a become a subscriber there or a follower or a liker Whatever it's called a spotifier and hopefully you tune into the next one. All right Take care talk to you next time