It's a silly comedy in a marketplace packed with fantasy and apes.

HP out of the top 10, that sucks, it had a good run though.

My local Cinemark put Hostel in it's biggest theater. I couldn;t believe it but the show I went to last night was sold out. LG films is making a nice chunk of change with it.

Looks like Kong will pass 200 million next weekend.

Maybe a little dissapointing per expectations, but definitely still a big money maker when you figure it will pretty much break even domestically, so all the international box office, merchandise and eventually DVDs will be pure profit.

Well, more like it'll break even theatrically with international included.

Still a solid run though, all things considered.

Most of the international Box Office will be profit. The cost was around $200 million, more for marketing etc. So it will come close to breaking even domestically, and most of the international will be profit.

All the international gross will be profit. It's taken in $272 million overseas for a grand total of $464 million. I'm happy with that. A few weeks ago, many projected the film wouldn't pass $150 million here.

Also a big to Munich taking in $7.5 million. Finally saw this yesterday and loved it. Hopefully it will pick up some momentum as it's expanded. This deserves a Best Picture spot.

No, it'll lose money domestically. The rule of thumb is grossing 2 1/2 your budget to see profit. It's not a rule set in stone, but that's a pretty good guide to use.

All in, it will make money, but not with North American grosses.

So what percentage do the theatres get from the gross?

Yeah, exactly. Kong will probably be around or just shy of break even point with worldwide box office considered. 2 times, 2.5 times...it's somewhere around there for determining breakeven point.

But on the other hand, nobody greenlights budgets of 150 million plus with the idea that they'll make profits domestically.

yep, Kong needs to pull in around $400 million domestically to break even
Hell they're still buying television ads (never a good sign this far in a films theatrical run), so promotion alone must be around $100 million in cost

Studio's work out different deals with each film, but generally studio's make their money early in the run while the theaters get it late in the run on sliding scale, which is why theaters like films with legs

clearly Uni. thought they had a huge film on their hands or we wouldn't have been privey to all that"rival Titanic" talk before its release

That's not a bad sign. Just means the film is still playing and making money. Hell they were running HP4 ads just recently.

And that only came up late in the game when reviews were going through the roof, and they allowed a long length. And hell, I don't recall Universal actually saying that themselves.

Remember, Kong was greenlit at 150 million dollars with the idea it'd be a 2 hour or so film. Surely they expected big, but those numbers (even the 207 million) don't display any confidence that the film will surely make money like Titanic. If someone was so sure a movie would make money like Titanic, they'd be safe spending 400 million dollars on the budget if they wanted to.

Besides, they DO have a huge film on their hands just, relative to cost, not as big as one would hope. If expectations hadn't been through the roof and the budget gone so over, this would be a bigger success than the other 150 million dollar films this year.

Cause really, expectations arise over hype and buzz...but for most films barely exist when they are greenlit. Certainly this film had some from the beginning being from who it is from. But expectations mean only so much...Narnia is a film that cost relatively the same amount of money budget and P&A (budget was only 9 million less) and had far lower expectations. Now its performing better than Kong, and is considered a resounding success. But what if it made what Kong did? It'd still be considered a success, whereas Kong is a disapointment, even though relatively speaking they cost practically the same amounts. Those expectations don't always relate to actual bottom line amounts.

Now certainly those expectations color my definition, and I consider Kong's gross soft, but solid nonetheless.

I have a question. When Burger King and Kong partner up, who gets paid?

-JP

The only place I ever saw "Kong will rival Titanic" talk was on the 'Net.

To me the interesting Christmas box office story isn't Narnia and Kong--one's doing slightly better than expected, the other slightly worse, oh well--but rather the battle of the comedies. For the last few years comedies have cleaned up at Christmas: last year Meet the Fockers made $60m in its opening weekend. (The year before that it was Cheaper by the Dozen and Something's Gotta Give.)

All the studios wanted to get in on the action this year, but the result has been a bloodbath with no clear hits. Dick and Jane has earned $80m so far, but has to deal with the burden of Jim Carrey's salary--the budget was $100 m. Cheaper by the Dozen 2 is doing well below the original. Rumor Has It and Family Stone are languishing under $50m. Only Dick and Jane has a shot at the $125m-ish that the Something's Gotta Give, and the original Dozen hit. And none of them is going to get anywhere near Focker's $280m.

Kong.

Talk about out-of-control budgets. There is nothing in that film that should costs that much. No F/X. Modern setting. Less stunts than a TV espisode. I have no idea where the costs are Just looking at it, there is no reason the budget should be over $25M. Add in Jim's $$ and at most, it should be $45M.

I think Dick and Jane had a lot of problems and needed tons of reshoots, which drove up the budget a whole lot.

It happens. Remember Town and Country? Nobody does, but it had a nearly $100m budget too.

Though, that one has a distinct honor:

That said, I think Pluto Nash holds that crown now... with Stealth in a close second.

The original budget of Fun with Dick and Jane was $60 million, but after initial shooting, the director requested over a month of reshoots (which ended up costing an additional $40 million).

The same thing happened to Town & Country over five years ago. Nobody was happy with the initial product, so they went back and reshot a lot of the film.

The reasons both budgets inflated so much was that they had to get the entire cast back for both reshoots, and some of the time, the actors want a little bit more to have to come back and do reshoots.

Both are unlike last year's Cursed whereas that situation, Craven and Williamson let go a lot of the original cast and just hired new (and cheaper) actors instead.

Thanks for the reply. I've always wondered if Kong got paid because BK was selling more burgers, or if BK got paid because it was selling Kong.

-JP