Alien: Covenant Box Office Performance

[cucuchu]

I hope they don't go cheap with the next film. If you give it a decent budget similar to Covenant, you have a chance at course correcting the franchise if the right ideas are at play and execution is well-done. If you just go too cheap then the franchise gets pushed further into irrelevance.

[AlienFanIL17]

It's easy for me to say this, since it's Fox's money and not mine, lol.

If the budget gets reduced a little bit more, I think we could get a sequel to Covenant in a couple of years.  A reduced budget could have the benefit of bringing in the smaller sets and increased tension that was present in the original Alien.  Maybe the budget would be able handle one big set piece, or one big CGI sequence. 

I really think the future of Alien is in Alien 5 or whatever the next sequel to Resurrection will be.  An Alien 5 would allow the franchise to move away from everything we have seen about the Alien so far, and start to show some new creative insights into the creature.  They can't keep making Alien movies without evolving the beast's capabilities, and just showing us the same things over and over again. 

I actually think that future Alien movies can incorporate those Prometheus concepts of creation and the Engineers.  I seem to remember Sigourney saying something to the effect of wanting to go to where the Alien came from to finish off Ripley's story.  The Alien home planet could be another Engineer planet where a black goo accident went horribly wrong.  As much as I want to get a Covenant sequel that ties into the first Alien, exciting new features and concepts can only come with an Alien 5 sequel and beyond.  That's just my opinion.

[windebieste]

Scott won't do cheap.  But he won't go overboard on throwing money around, either.

No course correction is necessary, either.  These movies are on a path they're meant to be on.  I'm looking forward to the next installment of this series. 

You can bet the next movie will be a large scale confrontation... thousands of Aliens, Engineers and USCM into the mix.  That's not course correction - that's where it's headed.

Scott said it's going to be Epic.  I doubt it will all be contained in just one more movie. 

We've effectively only just witnessed half (at best) of a much bigger, Grander vision. 

-Windebieste.

[Huggs]

Sad to hear they're not getting the full film. Censorship is (in and of itself) a vile thing. I don't personally think Scott's steering this towards some large-scale intergalactic showdown. Unless the series gets handed to another director, such as Cameron or N.B., I don't see the Colonial Marines appearing on film in a significant way anytime soon, if ever again. This is, after all, a cash business. And unless it's got marvel or Disney attached to it, the love of the fan base only counts so much. A hard lesson was learned from King Arthur this year, and the reduced intake for covenant over Prometheus won't exactly help either. Perhaps it's time to get off this road of trying to keep everything intrinsically linked together. Maybe the only common link needed is the creature itself. They're ancient, and they're out there, everywhere. Plenty of different stories to be told. You don't need the company or Ripley to always be involved. Maybe reference other future films with wreckage and bones, but keep the blood fresh and release the kraken.

Or just have Jack Sparrow in an ironman suit swinging wonder woman's sword at a mummified Barbosa in the Mechanical Batsuit from D.O.J. while onboard a Juggernaut that's hurtling towards the sun and being chased by the guardians. And have tom cruise running, it doesn't matter where.

[0321recon]

Scott won't do cheap.  But he won't go overboard on throwing money around, either.

No course correction is necessary, either.  These movies are on a path they're meant to be on.  I'm looking forward to the next installment of this series. 

You can bet the next movie will be a large scale confrontation... thousands of Aliens, Engineers and USCM into the mix.  That's not course correction - that's where it's headed.

Scott said it's going to be Epic.  I doubt it will all be contained in just one more movie. 

We've effectively only just witnessed half (at best) of a much bigger, Grander vision. 

-Windebieste.

I agree. Seeing the recent video were he talks about the direction of the series, he's going to need every cent to bring that vision into reality. I'm pumped for this since its going to be grand space epic though I fear with Covenant's lackluster performance, Fox might screw around with the story. I'm hoping that Fox at least gives him the same budget from Covenant for this film, and let Riddles do this film, even if its the final in the series.

[PierreVW]

Scott won't do cheap.  But he won't go overboard on throwing money around, either.

No course correction is necessary, either.  These movies are on a path they're meant to be on.  I'm looking forward to the next installment of this series. 

You can bet the next movie will be a large scale confrontation... thousands of Aliens, Engineers and USCM into the mix.  That's not course correction - that's where it's headed.

Scott said it's going to be Epic.  I doubt it will all be contained in just one more movie. 

We've effectively only just witnessed half (at best) of a much bigger, Grander vision. 

-Windebieste.

Probably the same budget: 97 Million USD.

COVENANT underperformed but Ridley Scott is powerful especially at FOX.

[Prof. a]

How much Studios get money/share from $215 million ?

Roughly overall, 1/2 of the box office goes to the studio.

Domestically yes, but not from the foreign markets. It's more complex that 50/50 share.

I wrote "Roughly overall". I wanted to give a short answer and imo about 50% was an OK brief description.

But as you point out box office can be complicated.
So, for you I'll be more clear with a long answer.

- It's true that the studio's share of box office varies by country where the film is being shown. 

The percentage of revenues that the exhibitor takes in depends on the individual contract for that film — which in turn depends on how much muscle the distributor has, according to Stone...

generally, how much of the domestic box office revenue goes to the studios?...
if a film only makes $10 million at the box office, the distributor will get only 45 percent of that money. But if a film makes $300 million at the box office, then the distributor gets up to 60 percent of that money...

According to the book The Hollywood Economist by Edward Jay Epstein, studios take in about 40 percent of the revenue from overseas release

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5747305/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need-to-make-to-be-profitable

- So in the end, these calculations are rough guesses.
It is possible for a studio to take in from 45% to 60% of US box office and 40% of overseas box office (which is also a guess since box office varies by country).
I don't know the specific percentages for each movie because those are secret but I'll first use a 50/40 US/overseas spit and then a possible best case for the studio of a 60/40 US/overseas split as described in the io9 article.

* 50/40 US/overseas split;
- Using that, for a film like "Star Trek (2009)" which had 2/3 of its box office in the US, that would mean about 47% goes to the studio.
With "Star Trek Into Darkness" which has about a 50/50 US/overseas box office split, about 45% would go to the studio.
For "Prometheus" where overseas box office was 68.6%, then about 43% went to the studio.
And with the "Covenant" numbers so far, where 66.2% of box office is coming from overseas, again about 43% would go to the studio.

* 60/40 US/overseas split;
- Again, for "Star Trek (2009)" which had 2/3 of its box office in the US, that would mean about 54% goes to the studio.
"Star Trek Into Darkness" and its about 50/50 US/overseas box office split, about 50% would go to the studio.
"Prometheus" where overseas box office was 68.6%, then about 46% went to the studio.
finally with the "Covenant" numbers so far, where 66.2% of box office is coming from overseas, about 47% would go to the studio.

- The actual US/overseas split I can only guess would be somewhere in this range of outcomes. 

* Considering that gantarat asked a simple question, I think that the short answer of a studio keeping about 1/2 of the overall box office was a fair reply.

Excellent post @bb-15. Thanks very much for that article - it basically confirms the gist of what I've been saying.

Quote: " So how do you know if the box-office gods have smiled enough on your favorite movie that studios are likely to greenlight similar films?
The short answer is, it depends on a number of factors, but a rule of thumb seems to be that the film needs to make twice its production budget globally."
(source: http://io9.gizmodo.com/5747305/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need-to-make-to-be-profitable)


This article also highlights and debunks the claims that all splits between theaters and studios are the same. They are not  - as the article mentions.

As for Covenant's Chinese success, the only caveat is that the split heavily favors the Chinese. American firms generally recoup only about 25% of the gross.

However, with the worldwide total over 200 million, Covenant has doubled its production budget.

Here's another interesting article about The Mummy.  http://deadline.com/2017/06/the-mummy-tom-cruise-box-office-bomb-loss-1202114482/

I will say that the article's main premise is that The Mummy will lose money. Keep in mind that the projections are based off of anonymous insider sources and estimates. So, you have to take some of that reporting with a dose of skepticism.

But it says this: "Our non-Universal finance sources tells us that cash break-even occurs at $450M. "

So, on a budget of about 200 million, The Mummy needs 2.25 times the production budget to break even.


The reality is the American Box Office is becoming more and more irrelevant as globalization and film industry economics takes its toll.

[PierreVW]

How much Studios get money/share from $215 million ?

Roughly overall, 1/2 of the box office goes to the studio.

Domestically yes, but not from the foreign markets. It's more complex that 50/50 share.

I wrote "Roughly overall". I wanted to give a short answer and imo about 50% was an OK brief description.

But as you point out box office can be complicated.
So, for you I'll be more clear with a long answer.

- It's true that the studio's share of box office varies by country where the film is being shown. 

The percentage of revenues that the exhibitor takes in depends on the individual contract for that film — which in turn depends on how much muscle the distributor has, according to Stone...

generally, how much of the domestic box office revenue goes to the studios?...
if a film only makes $10 million at the box office, the distributor will get only 45 percent of that money. But if a film makes $300 million at the box office, then the distributor gets up to 60 percent of that money...

According to the book The Hollywood Economist by Edward Jay Epstein, studios take in about 40 percent of the revenue from overseas release

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5747305/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need-to-make-to-be-profitable

- So in the end, these calculations are rough guesses.
It is possible for a studio to take in from 45% to 60% of US box office and 40% of overseas box office (which is also a guess since box office varies by country).
I don't know the specific percentages for each movie because those are secret but I'll first use a 50/40 US/overseas spit and then a possible best case for the studio of a 60/40 US/overseas split as described in the io9 article.

* 50/40 US/overseas split;
- Using that, for a film like "Star Trek (2009)" which had 2/3 of its box office in the US, that would mean about 47% goes to the studio.
With "Star Trek Into Darkness" which has about a 50/50 US/overseas box office split, about 45% would go to the studio.
For "Prometheus" where overseas box office was 68.6%, then about 43% went to the studio.
And with the "Covenant" numbers so far, where 66.2% of box office is coming from overseas, again about 43% would go to the studio.

* 60/40 US/overseas split;
- Again, for "Star Trek (2009)" which had 2/3 of its box office in the US, that would mean about 54% goes to the studio.
"Star Trek Into Darkness" and its about 50/50 US/overseas box office split, about 50% would go to the studio.
"Prometheus" where overseas box office was 68.6%, then about 46% went to the studio.
finally with the "Covenant" numbers so far, where 66.2% of box office is coming from overseas, about 47% would go to the studio.

- The actual US/overseas split I can only guess would be somewhere in this range of outcomes. 

* Considering that gantarat asked a simple question, I think that the short answer of a studio keeping about 1/2 of the overall box office was a fair reply.

Excellent post @bb-15. Thanks very much for that article - it basically confirms the gist of what I've been saying.

Quote: " So how do you know if the box-office gods have smiled enough on your favorite movie that studios are likely to greenlight similar films?
The short answer is, it depends on a number of factors, but a rule of thumb seems to be that the film needs to make twice its production budget globally."
(source: http://io9.gizmodo.com/5747305/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need-to-make-to-be-profitable)


This article also highlights and debunks the claims that all splits between theaters and studios are the same. They are not  - as the article mentions.

As for Covenant's Chinese success, the only caveat is that the split heavily favors the Chinese. American firms generally recoup only about 25% of the gross.

However, with the worldwide total over 200 million, Covenant has doubled its production budget.

Here's another interesting article about The Mummy.  http://deadline.com/2017/06/the-mummy-tom-cruise-box-office-bomb-loss-1202114482/

I will say that the article's main premise is that The Mummy will lose money. Keep in mind that the projections are based off of anonymous insider sources and estimates. So, you have to take some of that reporting with a dose of skepticism.

But it says this: "Our non-Universal finance sources tells us that cash break-even occurs at $450M. "

So, on a budget of about 200 million, The Mummy needs 2.25 times the production budget to break even.


The reality is the American Box Office is becoming more and more irrelevant as globalization and film industry economics takes its toll.

Thanks.

2.25

97 Million multiply 2.25 equals 218.25 Million

COVENANT could made MORE than 218.25 Million.

[windebieste]

Sad to hear they're not getting the full film. Censorship is (in and of itself) a vile thing. I don't personally think Scott's steering this towards some large-scale intergalactic showdown. Unless the series gets handed to another director, such as Cameron or N.B., I don't see the Colonial Marines appearing on film in a significant way anytime soon, if ever again. This is, after all, a cash business. And unless it's got marvel or Disney attached to it, the love of the fan base only counts so much. A hard lesson was learned from King Arthur this year, and the reduced intake for covenant over Prometheus won't exactly help either. Perhaps it's time to get off this road of trying to keep everything intrinsically linked together. Maybe the only common link needed is the creature itself. They're ancient, and they're out there, everywhere. Plenty of different stories to be told. You don't need the company or Ripley to always be involved. Maybe reference other future films with wreckage and bones, but keep the blood fresh and release the kraken.

Or just have Jack Sparrow in an ironman suit swinging wonder woman's sword at a mummified Barbosa in the Mechanical Batsuit from D.O.J. while onboard a Juggernaut that's hurtling towards the sun and being chased by the guardians. And have tom cruise running, it doesn't matter where.

How about Scott's intention to make Haldeman's 'Forever War' into a movie?  He's been wanting to make a 'large scale intergalacitic showdown.' for years  You better believe it.  That's exactly where this is heading.

As for Disney touching this property lol.  If you think the Chinese censors removing content was bad enough, then can you imagine what the Disney cut of any 'ALIEN' movie would be like? 

Say goodbye to any violence, sexual references, androids kissing...  Say goodbye to anything remotely suggestive - fachuggers would be gone, no phallic Aliens allowed... at all.  It would be worse than Chinese censorship version because no one will get to see the movie the way it was intended because like you say, Disney is a business and Disney will only tackle safe bets for lowest common denominator audiences.  They make kids shows and 'ALIEN' is not a safe bet or child friendly.   

f**k Disney.  Never, ever let them near anything of any real value unless you want to entertain children and family friendly audiences with mediocre content.  f**k that. 

"I say we should nuke Disney and their PG13 friendly market from orbit.  It's the only way to be sure."

-Windebieste.

[0321recon]

"I say we should nuke Disney and their PG13 friendly market from orbit.  It's the only way to be sure."

-Windebieste.

Nice! 

[PierreVW]

Sad to hear they're not getting the full film. Censorship is (in and of itself) a vile thing. I don't personally think Scott's steering this towards some large-scale intergalactic showdown. Unless the series gets handed to another director, such as Cameron or N.B., I don't see the Colonial Marines appearing on film in a significant way anytime soon, if ever again. This is, after all, a cash business. And unless it's got marvel or Disney attached to it, the love of the fan base only counts so much. A hard lesson was learned from King Arthur this year, and the reduced intake for covenant over Prometheus won't exactly help either. Perhaps it's time to get off this road of trying to keep everything intrinsically linked together. Maybe the only common link needed is the creature itself. They're ancient, and they're out there, everywhere. Plenty of different stories to be told. You don't need the company or Ripley to always be involved. Maybe reference other future films with wreckage and bones, but keep the blood fresh and release the kraken.

Or just have Jack Sparrow in an ironman suit swinging wonder woman's sword at a mummified Barbosa in the Mechanical Batsuit from D.O.J. while onboard a Juggernaut that's hurtling towards the sun and being chased by the guardians. And have tom cruise running, it doesn't matter where.

How about Scott's intention to make Haldeman's 'Forever War' into a movie?  He's been wanting to make a 'large scale intergalacitic showdown.' for years  You better believe it.  That's exactly where this is heading.

As for Disney touching this property lol.  If you think the Chinese censors removing content was bad enough, then can you imagine what the Disney cut of any 'ALIEN' movie would be like? 

Say goodbye to any violence, sexual references, androids kissing...  Say goodbye to anything remotely suggestive - fachuggers would be gone, no phallic Aliens allowed... at all.  It would be worse than Chinese censorship version because no one will get to see the movie the way it was intended because like you say, Disney is a business and Disney will only tackle safe bets for lowest common denominator audiences.  They make kids shows and 'ALIEN' is not a safe bet or child friendly.   

f**k Disney.  Never, ever let them near anything of any real value unless you want to entertain children and family friendly audiences with mediocre content.  f**k that. 

"I say we should nuke Disney and their PG13 friendly market from orbit.  It's the only way to be sure."

-Windebieste.

I agree 100%.

Disney is Killing Star Wars.

Today, Disney fired Lord & Miller from the Han Solo movie.

[Huggs]

It's been a long day at work, and perhaps I wasn't as specific as I intended. My point was that Marvel and Disney films make up a large portion of the highest grossing films each year, and therefore, studios are more comfortable investing in large scale pictures such as Pirates or Guardians because of an almost gauranteed high return. In no way was I suggesting that Disney make an Alien film. I personally am ready to see the Marvel Universe end so that we can get some creative and financial room for fresh ideas. I would much rather see A Cure For Wellness instead of Thor 7 and Finding Nemo's Great Grandson.


As for the "scale" of the next film, I simply have doubts that Ridley will be able to make anything of epic proportions happen, most likely due to hesitance from the studio. Unless Cameron comes onboard and turns it into avatar with Aliens, I don't see the studio shelling out more than Covenant's budget again. But claustrophobia and Aliens kinda go well together. So a smaller budget isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The last portion of my post, was of course, sarcasm as usual. But I still stand by that walking dead/breaking bad/aliens crossover.

[SM]

Sad to hear they're not getting the full film. Censorship is (in and of itself) a vile thing. I don't personally think Scott's steering this towards some large-scale intergalactic showdown. Unless the series gets handed to another director, such as Cameron or N.B., I don't see the Colonial Marines appearing on film in a significant way anytime soon, if ever again. This is, after all, a cash business. And unless it's got marvel or Disney attached to it, the love of the fan base only counts so much. A hard lesson was learned from King Arthur this year, and the reduced intake for covenant over Prometheus won't exactly help either. Perhaps it's time to get off this road of trying to keep everything intrinsically linked together. Maybe the only common link needed is the creature itself. They're ancient, and they're out there, everywhere. Plenty of different stories to be told. You don't need the company or Ripley to always be involved. Maybe reference other future films with wreckage and bones, but keep the blood fresh and release the kraken.

Or just have Jack Sparrow in an ironman suit swinging wonder woman's sword at a mummified Barbosa in the Mechanical Batsuit from D.O.J. while onboard a Juggernaut that's hurtling towards the sun and being chased by the guardians. And have tom cruise running, it doesn't matter where.

How about Scott's intention to make Haldeman's 'Forever War' into a movie?  He's been wanting to make a 'large scale intergalacitic showdown.' for years  You better believe it.  That's exactly where this is heading.

As for Disney touching this property lol.  If you think the Chinese censors removing content was bad enough, then can you imagine what the Disney cut of any 'ALIEN' movie would be like? 

Say goodbye to any violence, sexual references, androids kissing...  Say goodbye to anything remotely suggestive - fachuggers would be gone, no phallic Aliens allowed... at all.  It would be worse than Chinese censorship version because no one will get to see the movie the way it was intended because like you say, Disney is a business and Disney will only tackle safe bets for lowest common denominator audiences.  They make kids shows and 'ALIEN' is not a safe bet or child friendly.   

f**k Disney.  Never, ever let them near anything of any real value unless you want to entertain children and family friendly audiences with mediocre content.  f**k that. 

"I say we should nuke Disney and their PG13 friendly market from orbit.  It's the only way to be sure."

-Windebieste.

I agree 100%.

Disney is Killing Star Wars.

Today, Disney fired Lord & Miller from the Han Solo movie.

Two movies, $3b box office, glowing reviews.

lol "killing".

All ships, prepare to jump to hyperbole...

[Huggs]

But seriously, if anyone could outrun a xenomorph, God knows it would be Tom Cruise. 
Even though ya'll misread my original post, it does make for interesting thought. What would disney's version of an Alien film be about? Would Nicolas Cage be involved? Would acid blood affect the hulk? What if wey-yu bought up a company called 'cyberdine'. Would SGT. Candy lead a platoon of Colonial Marines? Perhaps a con-air style fight between Candy and Cage for and ending sequence. We later discover after the credits that Candy is really a terminator, and Cage is john travolta. Boy Howdy, it's terrifying stuff.

[SM]

46 year old Pete Postlethwaite outran a xenomorph.