"So does a movie just have to make back its production budget, or is there more involved?
There's a lot more, although studios are loath to give out numbers. The studios seldom release accurate production budgets — and they're even more leery of revealing how much they spend on other stuff, like promotion.
According to Contrino, the Print & Advertising (P&A) costs of a movie can be incredibly high — for a small $20 million film, the promotional budget can be higher than the production budget. That's because those films are often romantic comedies or kids' movies, which are cheap to make but still need a lot of promotion. For a film which cost between $35 and $75 million to make, the P&A budget will most likely be at least half the production budget. And the numbers only go up with bigger films. "If the studio spends a lot on the budget, they're going to want to protect that investment by advertising it heavily," says Contrino.
Case in point: Megamind cost between $130 million and $145 to make (depending on what source you believe.) But the P&A budget, or the cost of promoting the film, is estimated to be an additional $65 million, according to Contrino."
http://io9.com/5747305/how-much-mone...-be-profitable
Ok my job is done here. I know everything. Bye!
