Welcome.

You're right, this can be very complex and there is not be a 'typical'
case. But here is one possibility:

The theater gets 30 to 40% of the box-office.
The distribution company gets 30 to 60% of what's left until their
expenses, plus fees and percentages are met.
What's left is called the Producers (or Studios) Gross. this is what
the Studio or prodCo gets paid.
They keep their share (say 80%) until their costs, overhead, fees
and percentages are met. The rest is divided up based on what was
contracted. Above the line talent get a percentage first, then other
contracted "points" are given out.

Sometimes big stars, producers and directors get a piece of "first
dollar" - that's money given to them from the 60 to 70% the theaters
don't get. Royalties are paid out after a specific time and usually
based on the sales to ancillary markets and/or the number of times
the movie is screened and the units sold.

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

thanks very much for that. those are the kind of ballpark figures that i was looking for.

do you know if this is representative of dvd distribution as well?

as i mentioned i would be very grateful if anyone could point me in the direction of online resources such as studies and analysis of film/dvd distribution and sales.

kind regards,
derek

You're welcome.

quote:

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Originally posted by eldel
as i mentioned i would be very grateful if anyone could point me in the direction of online resources such as studies and analysis of film/dvd distribution and sales.

kind regards,
derek

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I typed "analysis of film/dvd distribution and sales"
into Google.

Some very interesting results. Then I narrowed it
down to "analysis of film distribution" and got even
more specific results. When I used "analysis dvd
distribution and sales" many different sites popped
up. You already have the search words needed in
your post here.

Are you doing this for a class?

=============================================
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

ok thanks for that. i've been browsing this material and with a bit of sifting there is some useful stuff. what i have not found and was wondering if it is out there (and free!) are good general introductions to this part of the film industry (as you may expect to find in a chapter of a comprehensive text book for example). that was the main point of my query. perhaps this type of resource doesn't really exist on the web...

this is the start of some personal research. where i am going is trying to get a feel for how the various stakeholders in the distribution chain lose out when people view pirated material instead of going to the cinema or buying/renting dvds for example. i appreciate the there are many industry-wide estimates for the impact of piracy but i am struggling to get this detail.

thanks,
derek

You're welcome.

I hope the general percentages I gave you helped. And now that
you have the wed sites (most of them are free) you should be
able to get the detail you need.

It seems to me that if a consumer doesn't pay to see a movie in
the theaters or pay for a DVD then no matter what the percentages
are, everyone loses.

yes i agree. lost revenue will affect the industry as a whole and this all feeds back into future film production. my analysis is more focused on what you might call the 'immediate' impact of lost revenue and who could make a claim to be directly impacted financially and how to quantify this. i don't expect to find any hard and fast rules but i am trying to gain an objective understanding.
thanks,
derek

forgot to say that if anyone else has thoughts on this i would love to hear them.
thanks again

So you've been working on this analysis for over a month. What have you found
about the immediate impact of lost revenue?