Ticket Take Parade

As the summer box-office derby nears another record, studios are counting up their wins and bemoaning their losses to see where they scored, where they bled.

The biggest-grossing films of this season turned out to be “Independence Day,” “Twister,” “Mission: Impossible,” “The Rock,” “The Nutty Professor,” “Eraser” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

As anyone in Hollywood can tell you, grosses don’t tell the real story. What counts is profitability. And loss.

Box-office scores are even more misleading these days, when the trend is for studios to share the risk--thus the profits or loss--on the big, expensive event movies. Meanwhile, there are an increasing number of Hollywood players who have the clout to participate in the gross profits of a movie.

“Twister,” which was the second-highest-grossing film this summer, is a perfect example. Its executive producer, Steven Spielberg, whose Amblin Entertainment produced the movie, will wind up making a killing on the picture without having risked a penny.

After theater owners take their cut of the box-office pie (which is about 50% domestically and 40% internationally), studios can start counting their profits after recouping their often hefty production and marketing costs and paying other profit participants.

Although “Independence Day” will far out-net “Hunchback,” many industry sources believe the animated movie could end up yielding Disney more profit than its live-action competitor for several reasons. For one, Disney doesn’t have to pay any profit participants, whereas Fox must share a percentage of its take with the writer-director-producer team responsible for “Independence Day.”

Disney will make more on merchandising sales than Fox. And, many believe “Hunchback” will outsell “Independence Day” on home video.

In any case, it will be a race between “Hunchback” and “Independence Day” to see which movie ends up returning the most money to the studio that made and released it.

Industry sources estimate the films could potentially earn as much as $450 million or more once all revenue streams--including worldwide theatrical, video, television and merchandising--are exploited.

One optimistic observer says, “I think both these movies will earn $500 million for each studio.”

“Independence Day” and “Hunchback” cost about $75 million and $70 million respectively to produce and both cost an additional $75 million or more to market worldwide.

Fox is paying “Independence Day” writer-director-executive producer Roland Emmerich and writer-producer Dean Devlin a total of $7.5 million upfront against 7.5% of the first-dollar gross. (First-dollar gross is the industry gold standard because it is money paid as soon as revenue comes in, even before studios recoup their costs.) Sources say the partners in total could earn $30 million to $50 million.

Industry sources are estimating that Paramount will see profit in excess of $110 million on “Mission: Impossible” after its star and producer Tom Cruise and his producing partner, Paula Wagner, take their cut. Cruise, who received no money upfront, reportedly gets 15% of first-dollar gross as an actor and an additional 5% for producing, which he splits with Wagner. Sources say the two could earn $60 million on the picture, which cost Paramount about $75 million to produce and an additional $75 million to market worldwide.

Disney’s action movie, “The Rock,” starring Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage, is also estimated to net a profit for the studio of about $100 million after paying its star and producer their shares. The company’s total investment in production and worldwide marketing is around $150 million.

The studio will have to pay about $25 million to profit participants. Connery gets paid $10 million against a percentage of the gross, believed to be just over 10%. Sources said the star will probably make about $15 million. The film’s producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, also gets a piece of the gross, after the studio recoups its costs.

Spielberg--who is able to negotiate the best deals in the industry--will score big on “Twister,” which his company Amblin produced but he did not direct. Warner Bros. and Universal, which shared the cost of financing the movie (about $92 million to produce and an estimated $75 million to market worldwide), will split profit 50-50.

Sources estimate the two studios could each see between $100 million and $125 million in profit, and Spielberg could make as much as $75 million. A highly placed source at one of the two studios that produced the movie said Spielberg could actually net more than either of the companies, but another top executive refuted that.

Writer Michael Crichton and Jan De Bont, who gets $4 million upfront to direct, will also participate in the profit. A source involved in the movie said they could walk away with a combined $15 million or more.

Universal, because it’s not sharing the risk with another studio, could wind up making more of a profit on “Nutty Professor” than from its half of “Twister.” Sources estimate that the studio will net between $110 million and $140 million after the film’s star, Eddie Murphy, gets his share and producer Brian Grazer and his and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment get its chunk of first-dollar gross.

“Nutty,” the least expensive movie among the summer’s top-grossing films, cost $54 million to produce and between $60 million to $80 million to market worldwide. Murphy received $12.5 million upfront against 10% to 15% of first dollar gross.

At best, some sources say Warner Bros. could see a $40-million profit on “Eraser,” on which the studio spent at least $100 million to produce and $75 million to market worldwide. Other sources, who believe Warner’s costs were much higher, said they believe the profit will be much smaller.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the film’s star, gets about $17 million against 15% of first-dollar gross, escalating upward. The film’s producer, Arnold Kopelson, gets an upfront fee of about $1.5 million, plus a cut of the gross after the studio recoups its costs.

And which studio has had the most profitable summer?

When all dollars are counted, Disney appears to have had the hottest summer, among “Hunchback,” “The Rock” and “Phenomenon,” starring John Travolta, which had a production cost $32 million and is expected to turn a profit of $55 million. Even the studio’s spoof, “Spyhard,” which cost $18 million, will be profitable because of its unexpected strong performance overseas.

Although Fox scored huge with “Independence Day,” the studio took a sizable loss on its special effects movie “Chain Reaction,” which cost about $55 million to produce and is expected to lose in the mid-to-high $30-million range.

Warner has also had a good summer and will probably score a nice profit on its current release, “A Time To Kill,” and today’s release, “Tin Cup,” starring Kevin Costner and Rene Russo.

Paramount’s windfall on “Mission” was tempered somewhat by what could be a $25-million-plus loss on “The Phantom,” which cost an estimated $50 million.

Sony, with such duds as “Multiplicity,” “Matilda” and “Striptease” (which did not lose the studio money because it was a straight distribution deal), simply had a terrible summer, as did MGM, with such flops as “Moll Flanders,” “Fled” and “Kingpin.”

Box office figures were supplied by Exhibitor Relations Co.

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The Moneymakers

Box-office results are well and good, but to the movie studios the bottom line is far more important. Some films that draw huge crowds make less money for the studio than films that draw in fewer people, particularly as many studios are sharing costs with competitors and sharing profits with powerful actors and producers. Here are the top films of the summer analyzed by profitability, not just box-office results. The profit projections are estimates based on future worldwide box office, video sales, television sales, merchandising and other revenue.

“The Hunchback of Notre Dame”

Distributor: Disney/Buena Vista

Cost to produce and market: $150 million

Domestic box office to date: $91.5 million

Profit participants: None

Projected profit to studio: $450 million or more

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“Independence Day”

Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox

Cost to produce and market: $150 million

Domestic box office to date: $241.9 million

Profit participants: Writer-director Roland Emmerich, writer-producer Dean Devlin

Projected profit to studio: $450 million or more

“Twister”

Distributors: Warner Bros., domestic; Universal Pictures, foreign

Cost to produce and market: $167 million

Domestic box office to date: $232 million

Profit participants: Producer Steven Spielberg/Amblin Entertainment, writer Michael Crichton and director Jan De Bont

Projected profit to studios: $200 million to $250 million (to be split 50-50)

“Mission: Impossible”

Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Cost to produce and market: $150 million

Domestic box office to date: $175 million

Profit participants: Star-producer Tom Cruise, producing partner Paula Wagner

Projected profit to studio: $110 million plus

More Moneymakers

Some of the other hits of summer, along with a few losers:

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“The Nutty Professor”

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Cost to produce and market: $125 million

Domestic box office to date: $110 million

Profit participants: Eddie Murphy, producer Brian Grazer and Imagine Films

Projected profit to studio: $110 million to $140 million

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“The Rock”

Distributor: Hollywood Pictures/Buena Vista

Cost to produce and market: $150 million

Domestic box office to date: $126.5 million

Profit participants: Sean Connery, producer Jerry Bruckheimer

Projected profit to studio: $100 million

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“Eraser”

Distributor: Warner Bros.

Cost to produce and market: $150 million to $175 million

Domestic box office to date: $93.3 million

Profit participants: Arnold Schwarzenegger, producer Arnold Kopelson Projected profit to studio: $40 million

The Losers

The following films each cost more than $50 million to produce and are expected to lose in the tens of millions of dollars for the companies that financed them:

“Chain Reaction” (Twentieth Century Fox)

“The Phantom” (Paramount Pictures) “Striptease” (Castle Rock Entertainment)

“Multiplicity” (Sony Pictures Entertainment)

“Matilda” (Sony Pictures Entertainment) Sources: Box-office figures were supplied by Exhibitor Relations Co. All other figures are estimates and projections based on interviews with industry sources.