Who says piracy is killing the film industry lol
 

The Interview makes $15m in online release

Controversial Sony film The Interview has become the number one online movie ever released by the studio just four days after its release on 24 December.

The film raked in over $15m (£9.6m) and was downloaded more than two million times as of 27 December.

The film, about a fictional American plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was initially halted from being released by the studio.

It angered North Korea and was behind a wide scale cyber attack on the studio.

The hack from a group calling itself the Guardians of Peace led to the leaking of confidential information including upcoming movie scripts, confidential emails and actors' salaries.

Sony halted the release after unspecified threats of attacks against cinemas.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) later said its investigation into the hacking attack pointed the finger at North Korea. The country denied involvement, but described the hack as a "righteous deed".

Sony said in a statement on Sunday that the movie was made available in the US and Canada through Google services YouTube and Play, Microsoft's Xbox Video and its dedicated website in HD versions for 48-hour rental at $5.99 and for purchase at $14.99.

There was also a "strong turnout" for the movie's limited theatre release, after major US chains backed out of screening it.

Sony's move to cancel the film's release had garnered criticism in the US including from President Barack Obama, who said it meant freedom of expression was under threat.


So if piracy is killing the film industry then why has this made so much money online !!!

BBC News - The Interview makes $15m in online release

One more thing. When we are talking about $15M made online, we mean a real income for a company. When we say the movie has earned $15M in theaters, we should realize that movie-maker company got only a half of that money.

Yeah of course but this is just from online sales in the first month as well, not from theaters. and people rabble on about how piracy is killing the film industry. Piracy is not killing the film industry its a load of bollocks and always has been.

People ceate anti piracy firms to make money and nothing more. Anti Piracy is big business now. Piracy online has created another way for people to make money.

Seth Rogens comedies all make 100mil+ Neighbors made 250mil+, even a niche movie like This is the end made 120mil. Pineapple express 100mil

Week after week of world wide headlines, unprecedented exposure, the President of the USA going at it against the world's favorite villain and the movie will make even accounting for lower commissions to theaters a fraction of other Seth Rogen movies. Oh yea for piracy lol (sic)

Just so I better understand the situation.

Does this mean that Obama (or whoever is president) is now going to take over the marketing of each and every movie? Or are we just supposed to expect some sort of generic scandal before each release?

I also can't wait to see "Rootin - Tootin - Shootin - Putin" The story of how the CIA hires Kim K to kill the President of Russia with a scorching case of ass herpes

Piracy has nothing to do with this movie's sales (well, maybe it does, a link to a torrent of the movie was on the front page of Reddit within a few hours of it being available to stream online). What this case study shows is that your movie can do well online if you have a few weeks of non-stop press coverage about a controversy surrounding it, your company gets hacked into and terrorist threaten to blow up movie theaters if you show it.

The Washington Post is reporting that it only made about $2 million at the box office. it also says on Dec 25th alone it was illegally downloaded 750,000 times. I would imagine at least a few of those people might have bought a ticket.

"The film raked in over $15m".. you call $15m a win? It cost maybe 5 times as much to produce it.

Wait till they bring one out about putin

You may be right. But I don't think "The Interview" is a good example. Buzz was made that some foreign guy was threatening people and telling us not to go see it. So people were going to go see it out of spite and national pride. Gives people a chance to be part of something bigger than themselves.

I think it would have bombed without the controversy.

As long as they can pay an actor $20-100m (List of highest paid film actors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
AND still make a profit, they dont have any problems.

Compared to 10 years ago, they have 3 times the amount of potential customers, since most people are online now.

This would be a movie I would pay 10x price for a download :thumbsup

That amount was made in only 4 days...

their marketing stunt made them good money on this 3rd lvl movie

Take off the tinfoil hat. Losing major-theater-chain revenues, the political embarrassment (Lynton and Pascal close to getting the boot), lawsuits from employees facing serious identity theft problems, are HUGE losses that were not made up because Alamo Drafthouse and YouTube showed the movie to maybe a million or so (to be generous) free-speech fans who would have otherwise ignored it.

I think it cost 43 million or something ridiculous to make. So let's hold off suckin pirate dick for now

If some grew up watching pure shit that's produced today then it's easy to understand why they believe piracy doesn't hurt the film industry.

But if you remember a time when actual movies of great quality were made you see the effects of piracy.

There will never be another movie such as Sparticus, The 10 Commandments or Platoon. As long as piracy remains unchecked movies will continue to be CGI, Hollywood Bro club and stupid shit like "The Interview"

Ok, but it's only the first few days of its release life. It has plenty of time to recoup the budget and most likely a profit.

The movie cost $44 million to make. Most movies have media budgets roughly equal to their production budgets. That's a loss for The Interview.

It is common knowledge that a few blockbusters make up most movie industry revenue now. The remaining tiny percent is split amongst an ever-increasing number of tiny indies. Mid-level professional flicks by people like Soderburgh and Waters are simple not being made any more.

Much more than half. The theatre's take on a ticket it's much more than a $1 or so. They make all their money in the concessions.

Hollywood accounting. Look it up. :winkwink: Movie Studios NEVER take a loss, they'll make it look that way...but it's all just an illusion.

If they don't feel like profit-sharing, they may expense studio admin against one movie's budget disproportionately. That does not mean all movies make money.

Here is the itemized production budget for The Interview: Here are the best parts of the leaked budget for "The Interview," North Korea's least favorite movie -- Fusion

What line item in there do you think they secretly saved $30 mill or so on? (Not even factoring in media dough.)

WTF are you talking about? Don't you realize that without piracy it would have been not 15 mil but maybe 50 or whatever mil?
Nobody is saying that with piracy movies are not making ANY money. Saying is that they make MUCH LESS than without piracy.

Stop talking about those "free speech fans" (by the way what is up with that, why is this movie so important to free speech lol, this sounds stupid, I mean free speech to what?)!! This marketing opened it up to EVERYBODY. "free speech fans" are just a tiny portion of all the extra viewers that marketing acquired. Everybody and his grandmother heard about it and was curious about it.

I think your math is off.

The movie took in $15 million, but more than half of that went to other people. It costs $44 million to make the movie so..... Sony will loose tens of millions of dollars here.

This movie got more attention than any other movie this year and it will loose tens of millions of dollars. What does that tell you?

What would interest me is a confirmation that Google used the new HTML5 mp4 encrypted technology like Netflix has been using?

If you had to use Chrome to stream it -- Chrome is the only EME MP4 compliant browser ATM

EME WTF?: An introduction to Encrypted Media Extensions - HTML5 Rocks

Then the title of this thread delivers ;)
Who says piracy is killing the film industry lol

You edited out half my post and missed the point I''ll repost just for you.

The Interview was forecast to bring in 100mil. ALL Seth Rogens comedies made 100mil+ Neighbors 250mil+, This is the end made 120mil. Pineapple express 100mil. This one was already controversial enough that it was scheduled to open in 3000 major chain theaters.

Why the fuck would Sony embarrass themselves politically, face lawsuits from their own employees, strain relationships with Hollywood players, etc to gross the equivalent of a disaster at the box office? Your gran ma might have been curious but it doesn't bring the cash like major theater chains do.

this thread is funnier than the movie

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

+1 :2 cents: :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

feel free to contribute :winkwink:

Iron Sky The Coming Race | Indiegogo

People create anti crime firms to make money and nothing more. Anti crime is big business now. Crime online has created another way for people to make money.

fixed for you

Anybody who thinks theft is a tool for increased sales is deluding themselves to feel better about all the shit they steal. If you're someone who creates anything of value, then you wouldn't have that mindset.

this is a very valid point.. but i don't think they quite make that much, but 15 mil is definitely on the low side for an opening like that...

The Interview got Mallicked :upsidedow

When Google fiber rolls out it's Game Over for the mainstream film & music industries. They'll be deader than the porn industry.

Meanwhile in Netflix land:

Netflix 2015 lineup includes 8 new original series | Digital Trends

"The interview" is not a good example of any other movie's results. They just had a worldwide national free advertising campaign never before seen in movie history. But, Piracy is not killing the movie business, but it certainly siphons a ton of money off the bottom line.

Tell me about it...

I was above the line on "Orgazmo" and never saw a dime to this day, even though the movie was in the black before production even finished based on worldwide licensing rights being pre-sold.

Mark Damon of MDP sure did well though. :winkwink:

Killed DVD sales, theater ticket sales held up because you couldn't replicate the theater experience with an illegal download... until now.

I tried the Samsung Gear VR, that thing is amazing, like having the biggest screen you've ever seen with near perfect quality from your sofa.

All for only $200.

This thread doesn't mention the opinion of Paul Markham and is then useless.

Don't think having to wear a big clunky vr goggle is going to replace date night at the local cinema anytime soon. :2 cents:

I was waiting for this comment :winkwink:

Date night is still safe, when Oculus rift came out I thought it looked ridiculous but that Samsung/Oculus can make a 1st gen device part of the gear range that is already this good for less that $200 you have to wonder where it will be in 5 to 6 years time.

Here's numbers that are interesting to me.

In 1999 the movie industry had about 7.5 billion in total box office revenue. They sold about 1.46 billion movie tickets worldwide. When you adjust for inflation this income totals around 10.55 billion in 2014 dollars.

In 2014 (and there are still a few days left unaccounted for) they have sold 1.259 billion tickets and had 10.227 billion in box office revenue.

So a lot of people would say it is about the same after the inflation adjustment.

Here is the interesting part. In 1999 there were 461 movies released and the average ticket price was $5.08 ($7.20 in 2014 dollars). In 2014 there have been 682 movies released and the average ticket price is $8.12.

So, in the last 15 years the industry has had to raise prices by roughly 12% and produce roughly 33% more product just to make the same amount of money.

I don't think the movie industry is in any kind of peril, but I think most people could look at these numbers and see that things aren't going in a good direction for them.

woohoo, now just every fucking new movie have to be "hacked" and "stolen" and mr obama have to be involved, and voila, making money again! ... what a fucking joke this pure shit is ... :2 cents: obama, we need a promo!

So let me get this straight.
Are you saying that you're going to invite a girl to come over and watch a movie. But the two of you are going to sit their with VR headgear on?

I might be old fashioned but the reason I invite a girl to see a movie with me is so that we can make out. Or is this VR gear a plan to just get rid of the need to actually have a woman with you on a date? (serious question not trolling)

Obviously they see where things are headed. Personally I don't blame them a single bit for what they're doing except to say that they should be far more vicious. All of the Hollywood studios, all of the record companies, all of the magazine publishers, etc.. etc.. etc.. Should get together and adopt a zero tolerance policy against piracy.

Sue literally EVERYONE. Sue the pirate that downloads the stuff illegally... Sue the store that sold him the computer... sue the store's sales rep... Sue his Internet service provider.. Sue the police for not investigating... Sue the site that he downloaded from and their owners.. Sue the site's hosting company... Sue the government for not fixing the problem.... In short SUE EVERYONE

Once the court systems are so backed up and money hungry lawyers start their feeding frenzy the piracy will come to a stop in no time at all.

interesting, but box office is just once source of total revenue. could also compare dvd sales then to online sales now and a few other things.

If the store clerk leaves the cash drawer open and someone steals the money who is at fault?

Copyright infringement of movie files being copied and unlawfully transferred is the same thing. Do something so your product cannot be copied and stop crying.

DVD sales top VHS sales for first time - Silicon Valley Business Journal

Last year consumers spent a record-breaking $16.8 billion buying and renting movies on video, up 21 percent over 2000, and more than twice what they spent on movie tickets ($8.1 billion), the group says.

Sales of Online Movies Jumps; DVDs Continue to Decline - WSJ

Digital movie purchases surged 47% last year to $1.19 billion, according to data released by Digital Entertainment Group, an industry trade group. It was the fastest-growing category as total home-entertainment revenue inched up 0.7% to $18.22 billion.

Digital growth just barely made up for ongoing declines in sales and rentals of physical discs. The total U.S. home-entertainment market remains well below its peak of more than $22 billion 2004, a drop that has squeezed the profits of every studio and led to widespread cost cutting.

As DVD Sales and Rentals Fall, Streaming Revenue Rises | TVWeek

DVD sales, however, slipped 5.5% to $8.5 billion, from almost $9 billion the previous year, while revenue from video-rental stores slumped to $1.2 billion from $1.6 billion.

I'm off to read a book ...

You only go to the movies to "make out with a girl" ? what are you 14?

Like I said date night is safe but many people like me go a couple times a week, on a Saturday when the theater is full of spotty kids playing with their phones and eating popcorn a massive screen and a better 3d experience than at the theater from my sofa is tempting.