Real Numbers

8938438392479364368836928346238

Look, we're puffins. You wanted bunnies? Go to Australia.

There. That's a real and actual number. A whole positive integer. And is meaningless. I just typed it randomly. If you're in this exciting business which is making movies you've seen many numbers like the above one. With just as much meaning. Hey everybody! 678.387!

Exactly.

BS rules the industry. Malarky is standard operating procedure. Now with my personality it's the sort of thing which simply drives me close to insanity. I don't get why people are so insistent on privacy regarding actual numbers in the movie business. Or any business for that matter.

In fact, many contracts stipulate that you not say what any of the numbers are or any details about the finances of those contracts. I have no idea what everyone's afraid of. This whole thing where I talk about my business plan out-loud and on the internet: nobody does that. Why? No good reason.

For our binary friends, here's another random and meaningless number:
010110100101010101010101010110010000000110101111010

Alien Uprising so far worldwide made A. But then you also add North America (B) and that  =  C.

Clonehunter worldwide made D, plus North America (E, which we haven't actually got all of yet,) and that  = F.

Note that this is money which gets split into the two companies which made these movies. There's my company and my producer's company. We do that because of the complicated way that life is (taxes, fees, etc.) when you have LLC's with more than one member. So we each have an LLC with only one member.

And not until we break the $50,000 threshold do we begin to pay out revenue sharing with cast/crew/writers. We're actually surprisingly close to that threshold on Alien Uprising. But most of the major markets have been sold to on that picture so it still might not happen.

So... Blockbuster. Apparently you're looking at them paying $2 a unit up-front with a revenue share of 25% (meaning you have to rent out the title at $8 worth for them to start paying you more). And of course they're in Chapter 11 (not 13) so they can get out of a whole bunch of leases right now. If I know what I'm talking about (and since this blog post likely either has a picture of a bunny in it or is near a blog post with a picture of a bunny... well... you take your chances...) the leases they had on property was the biggest debit on their books. Some of their stores are profitable. I daresay that something close to most of their stores are profitable. Chapter 11 will get them out of unprofitable leases. It's very possible that (especially because they're on friendlier terms with the big studios than Netflix or Redbox) that they could turn around their business.

Still, you're looking at $2/unit up-front and that's only if they buy from you.

But overall everyone's saying the DVD market is collapsing. It may very well be.

Redbox is paying like $3.50 to $4.00 a unit. No returns. No revenue share.

A=$32,380

B=$10K

C=$42,380

D=$15,840

E=$5K

F=$20,840