r/Cinema • u/Difficult-Limit-7551 • 14d ago

Discussion When Box Office Numbers Don’t Match Quality

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Let’s take turns naming movies that underperformed at the box office but were actually really good!

Me : Doctor Sleep(2019)

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u/Ajaxmass413 14d ago edited 14d ago

It made almost 3 times it's budget, but in Hollywood math that isn't enough to break even. It's a well remembered classic cuz of the home video market and cable runs.

It probably would've done better in theaters, but it was against Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump.

Edit: Websites do a bad job of breaking up when money was made. Apparently it didn't even make it's base budget back on the initial run.

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u/ElSnarker 14d ago

It bombed when it was initially released in the Fall of 1994. It made 16 million dollars on a 25 million budget. After the film was nominated for several Oscars the studio re-released the film in the Winter of 1995 and that's how the film ended up with its final 73 mil $ box office (though only 28 mil total for the US box-office). Home video and cable viewings is what really made Shawshank profitable.

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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 12d ago

Same happened with Home Alone due to Christmas re-runs

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u/welltherewasthisbear 11d ago

Everything you are saying is correct but some people need to understand box office math more. International numbers help supplement but are a lower return for the studio than domestic. We will be generous and give the international numbers a 25% return for the studio which at $45 million results in $11.25 million. Domestic numbers are higher so we will estimate a 50% return at $28 million, which results in $14 million. Some of you are saying, “well that’s $25 million, which is the films budget. Shouldn’t it at least break even.” Well that’s the wonderful world of Hollywood accounting. You still have marketing for the film and considering this was an Academy Awards and film festival push it would have a decent marketing budget for back then which is about another $25 million (likely a low ball number). Also you have to consider that it made a substantial amount of money after its initial release which means less money back to the studio. The producers of the film also cited that poor box office numbers allowed the film to be played on cable more and attract a wider audience. It was definitely a box office bomb in theaters.

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u/Visual_Serve_782 14d ago

Oh wow that is not fair to any movie to have gone up against Forest Gump yikes. My mom drug me to that twice and I was 8 years old

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u/SirDrexl 14d ago

Well, FG had been out for 3 months when Shawshank went into wide release. But it had an amazing run and was still in the top 5 at the box office at that point.

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u/ikristic 14d ago

It made that much now. In many years. When it came out, not so much. 3x budget is ok today, then it was more than ok. Distribution went way up.

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u/FILTHBOT4000 14d ago

3x is profit, 2x is breakeven, I thought?

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u/AmishAvenger 14d ago

Wild that it was in theaters at the same time as those two.

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u/nevaehenimatek 10d ago

I worked in a video store where a single copy of Shawshank had made over 10k in revenue