When does a movie “break-even” and why are some movies still considered a flop when they gain money?

Question

The latest film to be considered flop in my eyes is Army of The Dead; gaining only about $1m from a budget of $70-90m. Another flop would be The Room, gaining less than $2,000 at the box office with a budget of $6m.

However when movies make more at the box office than what their budget was they are still considered flops. How much more money does it have to make for it to be considered a success?

In: Other

Answer 1

Movies are considered investments, it’s easy to find ones that cost tens of millions and not necessarily hard to find ones running into the hundreds of millions these days. That is a *toooon* of money. What execs usually seem to want is to double their money, so if it cost $50M they consider it a success if it brings in $100M. Though to be fair sometimes things can fail at the box office but make that money up later on as a cult hit with sales of discs etc.