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INDEXAdvice on film revenue projections (for business plan)
13 years, 4 months ago - Matthew Lawrence
Hi Shooters,
I’m currently putting a business plan together for a feature film and am looking for someone to point me in the right direction as to where I can get hold of information to help with my revenue projections.
A bit about the film; it’s called Eternal Darkness. It's a low budget horror / slasher film with a fair amount of gore, but also lots of suspense; I'm hoping it will be fast paced and gripping - keeping the audience guessing as to the identity and motive of the masked killer. It has a strong script but probably won’t have any big names attached. The planned route to market is straight to DVD in as many territories as possible together with newer channels such as VOD and later TV.
I’m looking to base my revenue projections on current market values and the revenue figures of as many similar films (in terms of budget and genre) as possible. Any help as to where I can find this stuff would be greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks,
Matthew
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13 years, 4 months ago - Peter Domankiewicz
Matthew
I'd recommend joining Film Specific, which is run by a former sales agent, Stacey Parks, and focusses on distribution. She publishes regularly updated lists for likely revenues from different territories and has also written extensively on the subject - including how to be realistic with yourself about projections and how not to get ripped off with exaggerated promises from sales agents.Indeed, this Wednesday there is a live seminar on VOD revenues. You can also ask her questions directly via the forums and there is plenty which is focussed on the low-budget film-maker. It costs a bit to join, but worth it.
Hope that helps
13 years, 4 months ago - Jerome Courshon
Matthew,
One of the best things you can do, to get accurate projections for your type of film, is connect with other producers who've taken the route you plan to take, and ask them to confidentially share info with you. (And those who've taken the route within the past 1-2 years, due to the shifting of revenues in the markets.)
The problem is that *most* producers don't share how their movies have done
publicly, for all the obvious reasons, and perhaps some non-obvious ones.
That is, you can get theatrical box office figures on any movie and they'll be
accurate. You can get DVD revenue numbers on the big movies occasionally
(studio and major independent), but finding info on the smaller indie ones is next to impossible. However, here's one place to try:
The website "The Numbers" does list -- when they have it -- DVD revenues of
some movies. Address: http://www.the-numbers.com
The studios really hate to release the revenues their movies make on DVD/Blu-ray, always have. So they try to avoid it.
For video rental revenues, the company Rentrak (in the U.S.) aggegates rental
revenues on every movie released into video stores. But getting info on individual movies without a corporate account might be challenging. (I don't know what they currently charge for access.)
In terms of cable/satellite/telco VOD, you cannot get "standard," "typical" numbers, because they're different for every film. Factors on how a movie performs is contingent upon what it did at the box office if released theatrically, star power (if any), and genre. Also, who released the film makes a difference too, as companies like IFC and Magnolia really work the VOD markets, with their "Day & Date" model.
When a small budget / no budget movie is released on cable/satellite/telco VOD, it can do extremely poorly, or it can do respectably. Just too many factors go into how it can do. One thing you must do for small budgeted films, is to have some advertising money for cable/satellite/telco VOD -- this can make a HUGE difference on performance. Most people don't know this or understand it, even some so-called experts.
For VOD online, there are so many platforms now -- and you should be on all of the majors ones, when you get to online distribution. Again, how well your film will do, without advertising or promotion by you, will depend upon the film/genre. So for example, without promotion and social media work by you to drive traffic to get people to buy/watch, IF you have a good horror or genre film (with no star names), AND good key art, you could do $2,000 - $3,000 per quarter. But you have to be on all the major platforms. If your key art sucks, that $$ number will do down dramatically. If you utilize promotion and social media work, etc. to drive traffic, then that number can go up.
If you have a couple of name actors, even semi-name ones, then you can do better than this. Bottom line, this number is increasing every year for online revenues. It seems to increase slowly each year, but it is growing as more and more of the world moves online for delivery of their entertainment.
Hope that helps. Fairly recently, one of the major VOD aggregators released actual stats on 5 or 6 of the films they handled for VOD. Surprised everyone that they did that. Anyway, I have PDFs of these somewhere in my computer, email me (or contact me through my website) and I'll find them and send to you. (This goes for anyone here.)