# Which of these summer movies are you interested in seeing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 28, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-of-these-summer-movies-are-you-interested-in-seeing/687146 "2014-04-28T02:07:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-of-these-summer-movies-are-you-interested-in-seeing/687146/141 "2014-09-26T15:02:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Because that would have involved about three times as much work as what I actually did. So you’re saying you aren’t willing to put in hours of work in your free time to make a minor point about movies on an obscure Internet message board? What the hell kind of geek are you? I’ve a good mind to take your Internet geek card away! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-of-these-summer-movies-are-you-interested-in-seeing/687146/142 "2014-09-26T16:47:12Z")
Foreign and domestic gross was besides my main point anyway. The point I was going for was the comparison of production costs to gross. Too many people focus on just the gross and ignore the production cost. This leads to people saying _Guardians of the Galaxy_ was the most successful movie of 2014. Which is arguably true but you can make an equally plausible argument that _Guardians of the Galaxy_ wasn’t even among the top ten most successful movies of 2014. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-of-these-summer-movies-are-you-interested-in-seeing/687146/143 "2014-09-26T17:17:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Foreign and domestic gross was besides my main point anyway. The point I was going for was the comparison of production costs to gross. Too many people focus on just the gross and ignore the production cost. > > This leads to people saying _Guardians of the Galaxy_ was the most successful movie of 2014. Which is arguably true but you can make an equally plausible argument that _Guardians of the Galaxy_ wasn’t even among the top ten most successful movies of 2014. But at the end of the day, what matters is the size of the pile in your bank account, not how profitable the movie was. For example, take the most profitable movie of the year, “God’s Not Dead,” bringing in just over $60M on a $2M budget. That leaves the producers with $58M in their bank account. Nice! Guardian’s of the Galaxy, on the other hand, was not nearly as PROFITABLE in terms of expenses vs. earnings, as you point out. That’s because it had a production budget of $170M and grossed only $274M domestically. But it DID have an $800M gross overseas. Even if you use that $2 worldwide equals $1 US that’s still and addtional $400M for the studio. That means after you subtract the production budget, GotG brought in $500M in profit to the studios. And slice it any way you will, $500M is a lot more than $58M. Quantity has a quality all its own! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-of-these-summer-movies-are-you-interested-in-seeing/687146/144 "2014-09-26T20:19:12Z")
On the other hand, if the production company had $170M sitting around in their bank account that they wanted to invest in a movie, they can put that money into one blockbuster like GotG, or they can spend it on 85 movies like _God’s Not Dead_. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-of-these-summer-movies-are-you-interested-in-seeing/687146/145 "2014-09-26T21:02:44Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Foreign and domestic gross was besides my main point anyway. The point I was going for was the comparison of production costs to gross. Too many people focus on just the gross and ignore the production cost. > > This leads to people saying _Guardians of the Galaxy_ was the most successful movie of 2014. Which is arguably true but you can make an equally plausible argument that _Guardians of the Galaxy_ wasn’t even among the top ten most successful movies of 2014. Uh yeah…no. I don’t think there is a plausible argument to be made for that, given the merchandising revenues to be had from a successful comic book movie. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-of-these-summer-movies-are-you-interested-in-seeing/687146/146 "2014-09-26T21:04:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > On the other hand, if the production company had $170M sitting around in their bank account that they wanted to invest in a movie, they can put that money into one blockbuster like GotG, or they can spend it on 85 movies like _God’s Not Dead_. How many of that 85 are going to be successful though? It seems from what I’ve seen that there is only enough room for one word-of-mouth, church-promoted movie like God’s Not Dead per year. And most don’t get near the wide release that God’s Not Dead got, either. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-of-these-summer-movies-are-you-interested-in-seeing/687146/147 "2014-09-26T23:02:38Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > But at the end of the day, what matters is the size of the pile in your bank account, not how profitable the movie was. For example, take the most profitable movie of the year, “God’s Not Dead,” bringing in just over $60M on a $2M budget. That leaves the producers with $58M in their bank account. Nice! Guardian’s of the Galaxy, on the other hand, was not nearly as PROFITABLE in terms of expenses vs. earnings, as you point out. That’s because it had a production budget of $170M and grossed only $274M domestically. But it DID have an $800M gross overseas. Even if you use that $2 worldwide equals $1 US that’s still and addtional $400M for the studio. That means after you subtract the production budget, GotG brought in $500M in profit to the studios. > > And slice it any way you will, $500M is a lot more than $58M. Quantity has a quality all its own! That’s the kind of short-sighted thinking I’m talking about. Studios don’t make a decision between producing _Guardians of the Galaxy_ and producing _God’s Not Dead_. For the amount of money a studio spent producing _Guardians of the Galaxy_, it could have produced _God’s Not Dead, The Fault in our Stars, Neighbors, The Purge: Anarchy, Heaven is for Real, Ride Along, Let’s Be Cops, If I Stay, Tammy, About Last Night_, and _Think Like a Man Too_ - eleven movies whose combined budgets were less than the budget of _Guardians of the Galaxy_ and whose combined box office was three time as high. > [@RikWriter](#): > > How many of that 85 are going to be successful though? It seems from what I’ve seen that there is only enough room for one word-of-mouth, church-promoted movie like God’s Not Dead per year. And most don’t get near the wide release that God’s Not Dead got, either. Diversifying is actually much safer. If you put your money on ten different movies, you can figure some of them will succeed. But if you bet all your money on just one movie, you might get stuck with _Transcendence_. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2014, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-of-these-summer-movies-are-you-interested-in-seeing/687146/148 "2014-09-27T14:37:34Z")
> [@](#): > > Diversifying is actually much safer. If you put your money on ten different movies, you can figure some of them will succeed. But if you bet all your money on just one movie, you might get stuck with Transcendence. Right, when I said "85 movies like _God’s Not Dead_, I didn’t mean “word-of-mouth, church-promoted movie” like **RikWriter** interpreted it; I meant “low budget but decent audience potential”. And obviously most of them won’t be as successful as _God’s Not Dead_ was (after all, we’re using it as the example because of how successful it was), but then, they don’t need to be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-of-these-summer-movies-are-you-interested-in-seeing/687146.md?page=7)