Movie Costs

From time to time, commenters get caught up in the fun game of what animated feature has made money, and which not. Here's a fine example about why the conjecture is a silly and fruitless enterprise.

... The actor who played Darth Vader still has not received residuals from the 1983 film "Return of the Jedi" because the movie, which ranks 15th in U.S. box office history, still has no technical profits to distribute. ...

Most corporations try to make a profit by limiting costs. Movies corporations manage to record a loss by maximizing costs. ...

Our fine entertainment conglomerates deep-fry the books almost from reflex. It's a long-standing movie tradition. And when I mean long-standing, read this example, a letter from one movie exec to another discussing a big-budget, exotic-location feature:

As the ... production will be put out as a special it will be necessary to have from you at an early date an estimate of its cost. This should be just as high as you can possibly make it and every item that you can possibly think of which can reasonably be charged to this negative should be added ...

The film above? It was a HUGE hit in its time, earning over 28 times its production cost.

And it was made ninety-nine years ago.

The more time passes, the more the same sh*t comes up, over and over.