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Terry's ROI
Verfasst von DRDMovieMusingsSTAFFMOD am 30. Juli 2022 um 18:47
While discussing Rob Zombie, @rooprect mentioned Terry Gilliam and wondered if his ROI might betray similar tendencies as we were observing with Zombie.
So, here are some numbers from movies that are singularly directed by Terry Gilliam:
- Time Bandits (1981) paid $8.47
- Brazil (1985) paid $0.66
- The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) paid $1.75
- The Fisher King (1991) paid $1.75
- Twelve Monkeys (1995) paid $5.82
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) paid $0.58
- The Brothers Grimm (2005) paid $1.20
- Tideland (2005) paid $0.05
- The Imagination of Doctor Parnassus (2009) paid $2.15
- The Zero Theorem (2013) paid $0.09
Add these all up, and Mr. Gilliam is averaging $1.93 in ROI - which is to say, he loses more money than he makes (typically, it takes revenues of 2x production budget to break even.)
In terms of ROI, his Time Bandits and Twelve Monkeys were the highlights, paying $8.47 and $5.82 respectively.
Other than that, he must do it - and find producers who also do it - for the love of telling those stories. And, that's okay. When it comes to reviews, all of these above films (with the lone exception of The Brothers Grimm) are rating at 64% or higher here on TMDb, with Brazil topping out at 77%, Twelve Monkeys hitting 76%, and The Fisher King at 73%.
If it's one thing I've learned through the exercise of building up my movie ROI database to over 2500 titles from 1924 to present, it's that great movies don't always make a lot of profit, while some really dumb movies have made a crapton of money. Profit is not sufficient as a sole determinant of quality.
@rooprect suspected that Gilliam's profitability turning point might have been The Brothers Grimm. There may be some truth to that, but not in terms of profit! The three movies between TB and TM all lost money, so he was no stranger to those numbers before TBG. However, up until FaLiLV, profit notwithstanding, Gilliam was booking ratings solidly upwards of 66%. TBG was the low point, just 58%...but the three movies afterwards somewhat bounced back above 60%.
I'm not overly familiar with his work, so, I'll look forward to @rooprect's insights/feedback on what they (or any other fan of Gilliam's for that matter) interpret from these numbers . And, for context, again, scan the convo on Rob Zombie to which I linked, above).
Antwort von rooprect
am 30. Juli 2022 um 19:13
Brilliant work, DRD! Very surprising to say the least. NO profitability? with his biggest financial dud being 12 Monkeys (which I would guess is the most popular)?
I’m also surprised that Tideland was his biggest financial win, because I thought it was the most controversial and least likely to bring in audiences (a dysfunctional romance between a preteen girl & a mentally stunted adult man). But it didn’t have any known actors so maybe it was just cheaper to make.
It’s a crime that Brazil didn’t make him any money. That movie is pure gold.
I never would’ve guessed any of this. Even Brothers Grimm was a financial bomb despite it being his big ‘sellout’ movie 🤔
All the same, it’s reassuring to see that he’s driven by the art rather than $$$. I’m sure he’s aware of how respected he is, so I hope that’s enough payoff for him to stay true to his ideal.
Antwort von DRDMovieMusings
am 31. Juli 2022 um 12:57
TM was his 2nd most profitable movie - it paid $5.82 for each budget dollar, good money!
Tideland was his least profitable movie - for each budget dollar spent, they only recovered 5 cents, ouch!
This is one of the reasons I wanted to explore the degree of intersection between a movie's profitability and its quality. It's very clear we should decide if we like a movie or not wholly independent of its financial performance (or awards or lack thereof, for that matter).
Indeed! So many great movies did not make a lot of money, but we're glad the movie makers stuck to their visions!
Antwort von rooprect
am 1. August 2022 um 10:42
Oops! for some reason I got my numbers crossed above. You're totally right: 12 Monkeys was his biggest winner and Tideland was his biggest dud, not the other way around like I thought. That makes lots more sense.
So after studying all the data (for Gilliam, Zombie & others) have you come up with a theory that explains it all?
I'm pretty baffled myself. My gut tells me a profitable film needs quality production, a known cast, and artistic originality (though it can't be too far above people's heads). Gilliam seems pretty consistent with quality production & artistic originality (except for Brothers Grimm). So by that reasoning, having a known cast might explain why Gilliam's biggest hits were 12 Monkeys & Time Bandits.
...but then it wouldn't explain why Fear & Loathing was such a box office miss. Unless maybe Johnny Depp's fans didn't care to see him as a balding, middle aged cynic?
Antwort von DRDMovieMusings
am 1. August 2022 um 15:19
Noooo worries, my friend. While I think expressing profitability in the way I do does indeed make sense once the method is clear, I do realize it's also not readily intuitive, which is why I tend to, perhaps, over-explain my method in each post I write that mentions profit numbers.
Ah, that ever-elusive "theory of everything"!
I certainly have not arrived at a theory that explains it all. In fact, there are articles out there talking about how being profitable in the movie business is almost a mystery, as most players (producers, directors, actors) really don't know why their movie does as well, or as poorly, as some do. (Most every dud was released by people who thought they had a winner on their hands; and some don't like the work they did even though it'd go on to make a ton of money). Speaking about Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Gilliam himself said "I wanted it to be seen as one of the great movies of all time." Did he really think that's what they produced? "Great" movies don't always do great business, but most of them are still modestly profitable!
Here's a New York Times article on the topic.
We all are! You're not alone, not at all.
These three together make a compelling argument!
Tenacious merit.
Right? Again, it's tough to find one theory that covers everything.
Here's a few things I've observed from the data that make for some kind of formula.
First, when it comes to movie franchises, it is extremely rare for sequels to out-profit the original. Generally speaking, across over 200 franchises thus far in my dbase, the ROI for the 2nd installment, the first sequel, in a franchise, manages to produce just 35% of the ROI of the original.
A terrific recent example is Top Gun: Maverick. It is currently paying $7.77, which is 32.5% of the whopping $23.79 ROI that the 1986 original raked in. (I'm currently tracking its performance in this thread to see how close it may come to that target 35%, which would be $8.33).
Another splendid demonstration of this is the Terminator franchise. The Terminator paid $12.25. Terminator II: Judgment Day, one of the greatest sequels of all time, and the highest rated in the franchise, paid $5.20, a solid 42% of the original (again, it's one of the greatest sequels of all time, which is what it takes to hit that kind of number).
So, this would add weight to your "artistic originality" vector. When a movie is a big surprise hit, the movie that "everyone is talking about", it drives ticket sales as people want to be part of the conversation.
Now, let me take a swing at your "known actors" vector.
One of the challenges with sequels is, actors who know the franchise is popular demand more salary, and production budgets go up. This is a large driver in sequel ROI that averages less than half the original installment ROI. That first movie is a big surprise. It's tough to keep people's interest and attention to "find out what happens next". Another issue with sequels is, to enjoy it, you ought to have seen the original. And if you didn't, it might be difficult to see it before going to the sequel, so, most people just don't go.
But, back to known actors. Some of the most profitable movies of all time seem to avoid known actors all-together!
Consider the shift in horror movies from the ~70s to the ~80s. Rosemary's Baby _(1968), paying $10.44, kicked off the "demon child" era (_The Exorcist, paying $55.16, and The Omen paying $21.76, are other highlights in this era). Lots of plot, lots of drama, lots of story. Terrific ROI.
Then there was Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) (ahead of its time), paying $102 on a $300G budget, gave us "Leatherface." And then there was Halloween (1978) paying $233 on a $300G budget, with the Shatner mask. And then there was Friday the 13th Part III (1982) paying $9.17 with the goalie mask. Ask the average fan who played Leatherface, or Michael Myers, or Jason Voorhees, and a few initiated might even recognize that different actors have taken the role...because they (essentially) didn't matter! (I say essentially because there's only ever been one Freddy Krueger - again, every rule will find its exceptions! There's only one John Kramer, too.)
Beyond the slasher genre, Mad Max (1979) paid a silly $250 on a $400G budget. Rocky (1976) paid $117 on a $1M budget.
While this doesn't cement the argument, one aspect of it does. The only two movies in my 2500+ title dbase to pay more than $500 (and they are alone at this auspicious level by wide margin) are The Blair Witch Project (1999) paying a fahgedabadit $4,133 on an "oh, c'mon!" $60G budget; and Paranormal Activity (2009) shoveling in $903 from an "it's just not fair" #215G budget. The 1-2-3 punch of super-low budget, no known stars, decent story that gets people talking about it is the safest bet to make lots of money. Even a movie like Clerks(1994) could make money, paying heee-yoog $116 on a "max your parents' credit cards" budget of $27G.
Indie films don't all make this kind of money. It still requires being a good movie that captures people's imagination, delivered with some craft. But, if you can put together a solid movie on a shoestring budget and it catches on, the ROI is silly. These days, $50M box office is nothing...but if you can do it on a budget of max $1M, there are few investment opportunities out there paying $50 for each dollar you spent!
Maybe!
Interestingly, the movie rates quite highly here on TMDb (~72%). That suggests that other market factors at time of release conspired to keep people out of the theatre for it.
1998 wasn't the greatest year for movies, and that might have just generally dampened people's willingness to spend money at the movies. The 48 titles I have in my dbase that released in 1998 collectively paid a moribund $2.61 - which, to date, is still the lowest ROI year since 1949!
Or, what about marketing? One of the reasons I chose simple revenue over production budget as my baseline KPI is, the marketing spend fluctuates and is largely hard to find. The "Insider's Formula" for movie profitability is gross/2 - production budget. Put another way, take the production budget and double it, to account for marketing spend, and THEN subtract that total from revenue. Of course, not all studios/spend all that money on marketing, We just don't know if or how much marketing dollars will be spent. So, I just dismiss it. And those aren't the only factors in deriving profitability. Check this article out! So, for me, I since I can find budget and box office data for most movies and do not have access to more of the factors that insiders do, I seize upon that more available data set to derive a simple ROI ("paying") number that I can use to relatively compare by movie, release year, decade, franchise, actor, director, studio, genre, etc...
All that said, maybe they just didn't market FaLiLV sufficiently? That is often cited as a reason for box office failure. Don't know if it applies here, but would not be surprised if it did.