How much money will they make off the DVD's? Best case scenario. by Gravy

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How much money will they make off the DVD's? Best case scenario.

POSTED BY: GRAVY
UPDATED: Thursday, October 20, 2005 18:09
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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 10:56 AM

GRAVY

Anyone know how much money the Serenity DVD could make? Realisticly, what would be a good estimate if things went well?

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 12:40 PM

JASONZZZ

eck... bloody money going into the corporate coffers... Trying really hard not to think about it...

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 12:50 PM

MSCKAREN

"realistically" - this word is starting to make me LOL.

"Realistically" the series DVD never should have sold as much as they did and "realistically" there never should have been a movie.

The movie DVDs will set records just like the series DVDs did and we'll get a second movie. (I'm thinking that's the intent of your question...?)

(Sorry if this comes off as snippy - I was just over at the UB and the nay sayers are starting to get under my skin.)

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 12:52 PM

DREAMTROVE

Um. Okay. Corporate coffers are where the money came from. I'm not sure how people think this works. Someone paid for all of those shows to be made. That was Rupert Murdoch and News Corp., the parent of Fox, which has been the production company for all of Joss' shows whereever they've been made. When money is being made, that's whose making it, which proves firefly to be economically viable and then it is allowed to continue.

So let me do the dance of capitalist superiority. This is today's installment of "Go money go!" If Fox makes money that might convince them, or someone else, that making the content was a wise investment. Since Fox spent all the cash, they really deserve to get some back, and better yet, it shows that content creators reap the benefits by giving money to Joss.

Now that I've said "yay corporate america" or err. "yay corporate australia" to be more technically accurate, let me get to the facts.

I think firefly dvd sales will be about 1 million.

I think Fox is taking about $20 a set from that. so $20M. If someone is closer to the biz or has better numbers, please post them. I think the total expenditure was $25 or $30M, plus $40M for the movie. They probably got like $5M or $10M back from ads already.

But this is what TV shows aim to do, break even. Not like movies. TV shows feel they will make money on the franchise, movies merchandise, reruns, etc. So it's all good, firefly definitely heading into the black, and I do believe that it ain't coming back. (into the red - I hope it's coming back on the air.)

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 1:01 PM

GRAVY

heheh, it's ok =)

I just want to know if DVD sales can garner the amount of money necessary for the making of another movie. And from what I've heard there's been talk that if the movie can earn something close to 80 million there's a good chance of the sequal being made. That would mean the DVD sales would have to fill a 30 to 40 million dollar gap. And I'm talking about Serenity now, not Firefly.

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 1:58 PM

JASONZZZ

Holy Smokes! $20 for a movie DVD? Is that US Dollars or Aussie? I dont' ever pay more than $12.99 for a movie DVD. Between GMart, KMart, WalMart, they are always beating each other up on movie pricing.

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 2:54 PM

STAKETHELURK

Quote:
Originally posted by Gravy:
I just want to know if DVD sales can garner the amount of money necessary for the making of another movie.

I’ve been composing a post on this topic for the past few days (it’s kinda longish and I haven’t had much time to work on it). Should be able post it in a day or two, with figures and something of a plan of action. But, here’s a relevant quote from said unfinished post that should answer you question (and probably scare you):

“Serenity must outsell “Firefly.” By a factor of 3. Minimum.”

So, to elaborate, we sell just as well as “Firefly” did and we will be dead in the water (or outer space or whatever). And even with that factor of three thing (1.5 million copies sold), we’ll still only make around $20 million. You can see that this’ll be very difficult to pull off--more on that later.

On a lighter note, that $80 million figure is what will guarantee sequels--we it hit it, they will happen. But that's just a guarantee; they might decide to go with sequels even with lower figures if they feel it's cost-effective. We just have to convince them there's a sizable audience out there that wants more.

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 3:16 PM

MIRAMEL

Quote:
Holy Smokes! $20 for a movie DVD? Is that US Dollars or Aussie? I dont' ever pay more than $12.99 for a movie DVD. Between GMart, KMart, WalMart, they are always beating each other up on movie pricing.

20 about norm, when it first comes out atleast... besides, you know we'll all buy it anyway

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 7:34 PM

BAPTISMO

Dont think Fox will get anythng off the movie DVD. That would all go to Universal wouldnt it?

USE SPOILER TAGS

Select to view spoiler:

for those of us that havent seen it yet

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Wednesday, October 19, 2005 7:57 PM

DELTAFOURTWO

Quote:
Originally posted by baptismo:
Dont think Fox will get anythng off the movie DVD. That would all go to Universal wouldnt it?

USE SPOILER TAGS
Select to view spoiler:
for those of us that havent seen it yet

This is true. The film rights and the television rights for the property are seperate. So Fox gets the DVD take and a take of the sydication rights for it playing on Sci-Fi (Which Universal owns so they get a cut too). While Universal gets ALL of the film release and DVD release money.

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Thursday, October 20, 2005 1:24 AM

GRAVY

Sure, the DVD sales will hopefully help a lot, but it would be nice if the movie could actually make up for the production cost (40 million) without the help of DVD sales. So far the movies made 30 million worldwide. The coming weekend will be important for US sales and there are a few more premieres left but not in any significant markets such as the U.K. or Australia. But I mean if the movie could even go plus and adding DVD sales to that, the whole enterprise could go plus 20-25 million.

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Thursday, October 20, 2005 5:23 AM

CYBERSNARK

Quote:
Originally posted by msckaren:
"Realistically" the series DVD never should have sold as much as they did and "realistically" there never should have been a movie.

Now see, I woulda' mis-quoted Wash.

"Honey, we're Browncoats. If things sold realistically, we'd be watching Star Wars."

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Thursday, October 20, 2005 10:58 AM

MIRAMEL

lol

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Thursday, October 20, 2005 12:28 PM

JASONZZZ

Quote:
Originally posted by Miramel:
Quote:
Holy Smokes! $20 for a movie DVD? Is that US Dollars or Aussie? I dont' ever pay more than $12.99 for a movie DVD. Between GMart, KMart, WalMart, they are always beating each other up on movie pricing.

20 about norm, when it first comes out atleast... besides, you know we'll all buy it anyway

Yes, even if I have to rob a crack whore, I'll still be getting money and setting it free... but DVD's only cost $2.50 to press and distribute - including print graphics, packaging, media authoring, etc, etc. It just kills me to pay any more than $12 knowing that.

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Thursday, October 20, 2005 12:38 PM

PHOENIXSHIP

Quote:
Originally posted by Gravy:
So far the movie's made 30 million worldwide.

Now that's reason to celebrate right there!!!

Milestones are good. I like nice round numbers.

"Why're you arguin' what's already been decided?"
Mal to Jayne, "Jaynestown"

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Thursday, October 20, 2005 3:31 PM

BAPTISMO

If it has made $30 mil already, it should easily crack $40 mil with DVD sales.

I would imagine so anyway.

You can buy extra copies and give them away for easter, birthdays, Christmas, the weekend, Monday - Friday..for any reason that you can imagine..

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Thursday, October 20, 2005 4:47 PM

MIRAMEL

Quote:
Yes, even if I have to rob a crack whore, I'll still be getting money and setting it free... but DVD's only cost $2.50 to press and distribute - including print graphics, packaging, media authoring, etc, etc. It just kills me to pay any more than $12 knowing that.

well now i know that...

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Thursday, October 20, 2005 6:09 PM

EBANZAI

I started a thread to discuss Serenity's profit/loss in realistic, hopefully biz-savvy numbers:

http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=2&t=14021

And an excerpt specifically on DVD revenues (some of this doesn't make sense unless you read the whole post):

Quote:

Using $15 per DVD (Universal's revenue, not cost to consumer) as a guess we need to estimate total number of DVDs sold. It has a Christmas release (12/20/2005) allowing for a good sales window. Total die-hard Firefly/Serenity fans number ~300,000. Each will buy an average of 2.5 copies. Non-rabid fans who saw Serenity in theaters will account for another 300,000 copies. People who were curious but passed on Serenity in theaters will account for 200,000 copies. That comes out to about 1.2 million copies sold.

If that sounds low to you, bear in mind that at $26.5mil (assuming $10/ticket), that's only 2.65 million people seeing Serenity in theaters. And many of those are repeat viewings by the fanbase. DVD sales will be good but not great. Expect more action on the rental side.

And as stated in the previous post, my guesstimate for international DVD sales (DVDi) is:

DVDd = 1.2mil * $15/DVD = $18mil (domestic)
DVDi = 67%(1.2mil) * $10/DVD = $8mil (international)

Worldwide home video/DVD revenue (adjusted for distribution costs):
67%($18mil + $8mil) = $17.3mil

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