Help With a Box-Office Question

[Greg]

This brings up an interesting question. What per cent of gross revenues do movies get from video/dvd sales/rentals and, what could be much more important for the future, pay per watch on the Internet, as opposed to theatrical ticket sales? The costs for rent, utilities, salaries for ushers or sales workers, etc., should be much lower for video/dvd and almost nonexistent for the Inetrnet. Also, the cost of prints/copies should be negligible for the Internet. This could enable movie companies to make more money off of pay per watch on the Internet even if the prices for the conumer are substantailly less than theatrical ticket prices.

[The Original BJ]

Thank you very much, Mister Tee. I very much appreciate it.

That definitely explains why more recent trades quote overall grosses but older trades cite domestic rentals.

I learn something new every day around here!

[Mister Tee]

Damien is correct, that it generally amounted to 50% of grosses, but there was some variation by the late 70s, when certain big-budget/reputation movies started demanding larger cuts of the early week grosses. I seem to recall A Bridge Too Far, a star-laden attempt to replicate The Longest Day, dying quickly at the box-office, but finishing the year (Variety always published the list in early January) with a surprisingly high rental because it had grabbed such a big percentage of the opening week or two.

I don't know for sure, but such chicanery may have had something to do with the switch of the Hollywood trades to reporting overall grosses within a few years of that.

[The Original BJ]

Damien, I actually thought you would be the one to help me on this!

I truly appreciate it -- I've been trying to wrap my brain around this concept all day, and nothing I googled was able to help me out!

[Damien]

"Domestic rentals" was the way a film's income used to be tracked. It means the share of money the studio received from theatre owners who exhibted the particular film after the theatres got their cut of the proceeds. As a rule of thumb, the domestic rental was around 50 percent of the gross.

[The Original BJ]

I am doing some research and struggling to understand a concept that perhaps someone might be better familiar with.

Does the term "domestic rentals" mean something different than "U.S. box office gross"?

I am looking at a list of "domestic rentals" in Variety, and the numbers are far different than what the commonly cited box office grosses are for those films.

For example...The Towering Inferno is listed at $52 million in domestic rentals, but is widely cited elsewhere as having earned $116 million (not adjusted for inflation.)

What is the difference between these two numbers -- what does domestic rentals mean?