Sky Captain box office earnings vs budget.
 

Wondering if anyone could tell me the profit margin in this film. Wondering if it made enough of a splash to merit a sequel. Searched the forum and have not found anything on budgets or box office totals.

According to BoxofficeMojo, it cost $75 Million for production and $35 Million marketing, and only made back $37 Million in the US and $15 Million overseas. Not exactly a smashing success.

Worldwide takings, including domestic, were $53 million.

The film's production budget was $70 million, with a further $35 million spent on ads.

This might seem like bad news, but the critics' reviews were largely favorable, and the DVD profits have yet to come. Kerry Conran has also been contracted by Paramount to make another film for them, though there's been no guarantee that it would be a Sky Captain film. Also - there's a rumor that the $70 million figure is incredibly inflated (so that Paramount could say they made no profits and pay the actors less, or so the CG effects secrets wouldn't be stolen by other studios wanting more bang for their buck, depending on who you ask), but I don't put much stock in that.

I've heard this as well...I've heard that the actual costs were only about $30 to $35 million.

Ah yes, those Academy-Award winning CG effects....oh wait.

You mean those PS2 CG effects?

There's no way Sky Captain only cost 30-35 million.

The vfx were done in that style to match the movie.

I highly doubt we'll see a sequel to this one.

Why not?

There was a great deal of pressure to keep the investments down on this film, due to the experimental nature of the piece.

I'm reading more and more that the 70 mil number is wayyyyyy off.

But no, to answer the original question, there will not be a sequel.

40 million seems to be much closer to the actual costs on this film. Recall this was also an independant production, and was only picked up by a studio well into its production. Not that that means it can't be expensive, but I get the feeling those lower numbers are probably correct.

But no, there won't be a sequel. Even at 40 million it didn't really make enough to justify a sequel.

If this becomes a great success on DVD, look for a sequel.

The only way I could see a sequel happening is if the DVD sells through the roof, and Jude Law scores a few mega blockbusters and is seen as a major box office draw. Similar to what happened with Vin Diesel and Riddick. I don't really expect either to happen really, though I'm sure DVD sales will be pretty decent.

Anyway, I'm sure Kerry Conran will get some good work and we'll defiantely see more from him. I know he's attached to Princess of Mars for Paramount, and I haven't heard that changing at all. If he's going to be making any sequels, it'd be for that, but we'll have to see how it does.

I wouldn't get my hopes up too high for a Sky Captain sequel though.

Anyone know what Law, Jolie and Paltrow received? They could easily have blown that budget just on payroll.

I'm pretty sure they didn't receive their normal big salaries. Jude Law was actually a producer on this film, so he'd have a vested interest in keeping the costs down. But in terms of acting, Law and Paltrow worked barely 25 days on this, and Jolie's entire role took her less than a week. Seeing as this project was an independant film when these actors signed on, I would imagine they were asked to keep their salaries in check, and would be willing to considering the unique nature of the film. It was hardly some big studio project where they throw money at actors to get them to be in them.

Let's see, shot on HD video, so no film/processing costs, with virtually no sets, no location expenses, and post-production and CG animation done on a desktop Mac.

I can't believe "Sky Captain" cost $35 million, unless Gwyneth Paltrow got paid $15 million.

This, by the way, doesn't mean I didn't like the movie. I did.

I still can't help but wonder why the film didn't do better with all of the mostly positive notice it got. My only guess is that it couldn't connect with modern audiences that well, or people outside of the geek kingdom. ;)

I don't care how it was done. The fact is considering who starred in it and the vast amount of CG work, as well as the companies that did that work, it sure as hell didn't cost 35 million dollars. I believe boxofficemojo.com is pretty accurate with their figures.

As for no film/processing costs, are you kidding me? Absolutely there were film costs, unless you're telling me that this film was only released in the very small percentage of theaters in this country that have digital projection.

As for no sets, CG and VFX can cost more than building a set a lot of times. Sometimes a set cost more. It just depends..

As for doing the effects on Macs, a lot of the effects nowadays are done on desktops, many running Linux. It is cheaper to run those, but it is not necessarily cheaper for the filmmaker. Many companies, including ILM, switched from SGI workstations to Intel workstations running Linux because they were cheaper to buy and had increased performance over the SGI machines. The days of the old massive SGI workstations are long since past. The actual FX work determines a lot of the cost, not what they were created on. Of course, there are other factors as well such as, the number of shots needed, the complexity of those shots, and the deadline for delivering said shots.

I believe 70 is more accurate than 35. Then again, if anyone can show me some real evidence that boxofficemojo.com is wrong, and the film did cost 35 million, I'll be more than happy to admit I'm wrong.:)

According to IMDB the estimated budget is 40 mill. I'm not exactly sure who's right in this case since I have no facts myself so really it's a toss up between which one you want to believe more.

Andrew

The film was too bizarre for mainstream audiences. Everyone I talked to that didn't see it asked if it took place in the future. I "get" what they were trying to do, would've worked for a music video but 90 minutes of that gave me a headache.

I dunno, but I went in with no preconceived notions about it and left feeling like I should have liked it, but I didn't. I would guess bad -- or at least lack of good -- word of mouth doomed it.

It's not like the kids over at BOM.com do the footwork on figures. They just report what's already been reported. They are wrong plenty o' times.

I wasn't talking about how much the movie cost to distribute, I was talking about how much it cost to produce.

I liked it the first time Paramont showed it, when it was called Captain Proton on ST: Voyager ;)
actually it wasn't a bad movie, but I can see why it didn't have a big theater draw

Yeah, I don't think anyone is disputing that there was probably an extra 30 million spent on P&A, which means prints and advertising. Prints being the film being sent out, therefore...yeah, that's not part of the production budget.

Actual production on this film seems to be...around 40 million dollars or so.

Of course, it still didn't do that great, box office wise, but it's far from a major bomb.

I for one enjoyed the hell out of it. But I can also recognize it's a fairly simple story, and is rather odd in its design aesthetics that probably turns some people off.

I think I should also note, it's not just the movie, but the actors too. Jude Law is proving to not be a viable box office star, as seemingly none of the films he's starring in really seem to be hitting. Starpower goes a long way when dealing with box office receipts, and Jude Law doesn't seem to really have any drawing power off his name alone. The same could be said about Gwyneth and Jolie who, despite being famous, hardly seem to equate to box office.

great info guys...didn't think this thread would show this much life...I enjoyed the charachter of sky captain...and it looked diffrent...I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel.

thanks again

gawd, marketing budgets right now are horribly inflated

1. The studio has to make over 3000+ prints for the film.
2. The studio has to promote the film on television (network and cable).
3. The studio has to promote the film on the radio.
4. The studio has to promote the film on the internet.
5. The studio has to promote the film in cities (via billboards, buses, etc).

And so on and so on... I could be here for a day, but you get the general idea of things...

Just to preface. I know nothing about how much CG costs but how can this film, with the actors involved and the extensive CG cost that much less then an animated CG film? The animated CG budgets run around $70mil and upwards.

I think these questions has been answered already in this thread.

The upcoming MIRRORMASK, which is also CG-heavy, cost 4 mil to produce.

It's all in who you hire to do the work. Want ILM? You have to pay for it. Pixar too.

I'm much more inclined to believe Conran than IMDB, which has about as much credibility as AICN.

I still consider that production costs, unless a filmmaker intentionally decides to cut his own throat by only releasing the film in digital theaters. You have to factor that in production costs because you have no choice but to make film prints. I understand what you're saying, and technically you're right. But the realization is at the end of the day, you have to use film, until digital theaters become more prevalent.

Never said otherwise, I'm just more inclined to believe their numbers than the numbers thrown around here.

Thanks for the info, although I would have liked a number. Far below could mean 60 million for all we know. 10 million could still be considered far below.

I've never understood this playing with film production costs. Just tell us how much the fucking thing cost.

That's funny, since the numbers thrown around here <i>are</i> BOM.com's numbers.

Not with regards to this particular thread and topic.

While you may consider that production costs, pretty much anytime you look at a budgeted figure anywhere, it's not taking P&A into account. If you're determined, as you seem to be, to consider Sky Captain a $70 million movie, then you're not going to be using an apples-to-apples comparison with other movie budgets if indeed that number is overinflated.

"The filmmaker" doesn't distribute the movie and probably has very little say in the matter.

I liked Sky Captain at my old age, but I would have loved it had I seen it when I was about eleven years old and in the fifth grade back in 1987. I have the feeling that had this movie come out in the fall of 1987 than the fall of 2004, and been exactly the same movie we saw, it would have done better.

Yeah, it doesn't make a lick of sense to include prints into the production budget. No studio or website does that. Ever. You'd have to include advertising into the production budget also. Basically, if you do that, then Sky Captain is a 70 million dollar movie, but Spiderman 2 would be a 300 million dollar movie and Van Helsing would be something like a 250 million dollar movie.

Basically, nobody in the industry, ever, places prints in the production budget. Go through box office mojo and not one of those production budgets includes prints. That's why they have a separate category, P&A.

And why don't they release an exact figure? Because, well, what do they care what you know. If you try and find an exact figure of how much Van Helsing, Riddick, Catwoman, or myriads of other films you'll find that you'll get conflicting numbers across the board. I can understand the logic in propping up a film as having a big budget or downplaying how much something cost when it bombs, but studios have no real reason to do exact accounting and release it to the public. Considering the nature of these productions encompassing so many different facets and employees and things to pay for, I doubt there's one movie out there that tells us exactly how much it cost to make. They're all, usually, somewhat ballpark figures.

Is there anywhere you can look up and see how it's DVD sales went on Tuesday?

You might, but no one else does. That's because the distribution process has so many variables. Platform release, limited release, 3,000 screens, 6,000 screens, type and quantity of advertising, marketing tie-ins and partners. But the production cost (sometimes refered to as the negative cost, because it pays for everything up to the finished, edited negative) is a little more uniform from one movie to the next.

Saw this on DVD yesterday. Yuck. Nice looking, but awful acting and an incredibly boring script. About half way through it reminded me of "Tomb Raider" in it's stinkiness and then lo and behold there's Lara Croft with a British accent. How appropriate.

No part two please.