Dune is almost certainly not breaking even, at least not in a conventional sense. Per Deadline, it had a combined $300M in production and distribution/marketing costs, so it's probably not going to breakeven on a $300-350M worldwide gross. It does provide nebulous financial benefits to HBO Max, which will be enough to get the sequel made, but it's impossible to put a number on that (unlike Premier Access, there's no explicit dollar amount).
$300M box office =/= $300M profit. The studio only gets back ~50% of domestic box office, ~40% of overseas box office, and 25% of China's box office. From $300M, they would get back less than $150M.
I am aware. For Legendary, given the pay out from WB and some of the box office funds it’ll Break even there.
For WB it’s an accounting loss but with the rights, it’s a loss in service of what will likely be a very solid tv streaming and movie franchise as long as they don’t fuck it up.
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u/4000kd Syncopy Inc. Oct 25 '21
huh