The Profitability of the Holiday Blockbuster

News sources have announced this month that the X-Men franchise dominated the box office on Memorial Day, reminding Stealth Media Group of the profitability of the holiday blockbuster. Why is it so lucrative?

Timing: An Essential Element to Ensuring High Returns on Film Investments

Ensuring a high return on a film investment demands a specific strategy which includes promotion, market research, production etc. However arguably, the most crucial element to securing a hit at the box office is calibrating the timing. When should your film be released for public viewership?

It’s has been a long held belief of the film industry that the best time to release productions, especially big budget blockbusters that need sustained audience turnout to facilitate high returns, is the holidays. The justification for this is simple; people have more free time and more of an inclination towards leisure activities when they are away from work or school.

An article published by E-Online illustrates this hypothesis, by explaining why movies are released on Christmas Day. The writer explains that "this week in December, since the year 2000, has consistently been the highest-grossing week of the year," and that is because Christmas Day specifically has the highest cinema turnout numbers.

The Transformative Effective of Timing on Film Finance

The E-Online article then goes on to show how a film can massively increase its profit potential, simply by being released on Christmas Day. It uses the example of Hilary Swank film P.S I Love You.

The film was expected to do well and was the typical ‘so-so’ film, which does well because it has the chance to grow on audiences over time. It opened at $6.5 million in its first week, but had grossed $53.7 million by the end of January. This is notable because films that open to $6.5 million dollars in their first week are often fortunate to even gross $20 million in total.

X-Men: A Case Study

With a blockbuster, the transformative effect of the holiday season gives birth to a juggernaut. Yahoo Finance reports that the latest film in the lucrative franchise, X-Men: Days of Future Past: debuted at $91 million gross on its opening weekend. Contrast that with the previous weekend’s highest grossing film, Godzilla, which earned $31.4 million in its second weekend. X-Men is now estimated to have pulled in globally $110 million over four days.

X-Men’s profit margins further illustrate to us here at Stealth Media Group, the power of the holidays in generating higher profit for your film investment. Marry a blockbuster and a holiday and you have a veritable goldmine on your hands.

Un-amazing Grace; Stealth Media looks at the film Cannes panned

Its Cannes week and Stealth Media are here! There’s usually one film every year that gets widely panned by the critics and media. This year it seems that the film that has bitten the bullet is Grace of Monaco.

Directed by Olivier Dahan and starring Nicole Kidman and Tim Roth the film is the story of former Hollywood star Grace Kelly’s crisis of marriage and identity. Kidman stars as Grace and Tim Roth is Monaco's Prince Rainier III.

Here’s a selection of some of the reviewers comments…

“A timeless camp classic”

“…often side splittingly funny. The trouble is, it’s not meant to be a comedy.”

“A stiff, stagey affair…”

The Royal Family of Monaco even weighed in with some heavy criticism “This film does not praise Monaco or the great man that was my father, Prince Rainier." Princess Stephanie was quoted as saying.

Press screening

The Press screening featured much laughter according to the BBC and there’s a genuine feeling of confusion about how a director of Dahan’s talent could create such a miss-fire.

Dahan previously directed La Vie En Rose, the widely acclaimed Edith Piaf biopic that was heavily praised and became the third-highest grossing French-Language film in the United States since 1980.

Dahan picked Marion Cotillard to play the part of Edith Piaf that won her an Academy Award and launched her international career. He doesn’t seem to have had the same success with Nicole Kidman who plays Grace Kelly.

Release has been cancelled

It’s also been widely reported that there’s been something of a spat between Dahan and the film’s American distributor Harvey Weinstein. According to the Guardian, Weinstein has pulled the film from release just two months prior to its debut in cinemas.

Weinstein has also been quoted as making derogatory comments about the film.

Weinstein is famous for being able to pick an Oscar winner, and has a past track record that includes; The Artist and The King’s Speech. Dahan and Weinstein have come to logger heads over proposed changes to the cut of the film.

Cutting room floor

Weinstein has previously re-cut several of films he’s taken on. He’s also famous for demanding the 20 minutes be dropped here and there before he takes a film under his wing. His nickname in the industry is ‘Harvey Scissorhands’.

It seems for now that Dahan and Weinstein have come to an agreement but the planned release won’t be helped by the legion of negative reviews the film has received.

For more information and film reviews from Stealth Media, don't forget to visit out website.

Welsh Move Banner Agrees £5 Million Financing Package

The British film industry is set to diversify as financier Gennaker has agreed to partner with Western Edge Pictures to build a film production and finance company, with offices in Swansea and London. Stealth Media comments.

Stealth Media is a film finance and Production Company that has facilitated effected solutions that have aided the development of films across the breadth of cinematic genres, thus contributing to the burgeoning British film sector.

Stealth Media comments that this lucrative deal should not only provide high returns to those involved in its conception, but it should act to bolster the growth of the entire national sector, in turn facilitating a broader scope for the film finance industry moving forward.

A £5 Million Deal

So what are the specifics for the deal in question? The Hollywood Reporter has announced that U.K based film Production Company Western Edge Pictures has partnered with finance experts Gennaker to facilitate the creation of a film production and finance firm based in both London and Swansea.

Specifically, Gennaker has agreed to invest a significant £5 million in Western Edge, which will be released gradually within a two year period. The finance banner has said that this is designed to facilitate a "bespoke approach to each film deal." On average, the finance banner should invest around (£200,000 - £500,000) per project.

Furthermore, Western Edge Pictures is also slated to receive a £88,500 investment from government endorsed Film Agency for Wales, in what has been labelled an effort to "boost the international growth of the business."

The International Expansion of the British Film Industry

This is a part of larger efforts by the UK government to promote the British film industry on an international scale by providing financial incentive to inspire film production companies to expand into global markets.

Specially, along with direct financial incentives, the UK government has provided a tax credit scheme designed to benefit film production firms that aid in the regeneration of the national film industry.

The Telegraph recently spoke to Damian TImmer at Mammoth Screen on the issue, and how it has benefited their latest project, Poldark. Timmer said that: “We’re filming Poldark entirely in the UK, and the tax credit means we can get more money on screen, and make a better show.”

At Stealth Media this significant deal only seeks to further illustrate the upward trajectory of the British film industry at this moment in time. It is a sector with enormous growth potential, and thus, the capability to provide significantly high returns for investors.