Many people are confused about how the Box Office works and that's understandable because it can be confusing. So let's explain:

Every movie starts with a budget, that's your baseline. Marvel and Hollywood budgets are usually around 200 million for blockbusters average. This NEVER includes marketing which is usually around 100 million. So your starting at around 300 million in the hole (negative).

Whatever the budget is you want to make 2.5 times that BARE MINIMUM to break even, because movie theaters get half. Break Even means you covered the cost (didn't make money or lose money) at the box office. Breaking even is infinitely better than losing money, it's a giant gap. Because of merchandise (toys, clothes, lunch boxes, etc) and streaming your guaranteed to make money if you BREAK EVEN bare minimum at the box office.

So for a movie like Guardians of the Galaxy 1 , the budget was 200 million with another 100 mil in marketing (300 million total). That movie needs 500 million at the box office to break even (200 m budget x 2.5). It made 770 million , the movie theater gets around half. Marvel (400 million average cut minus the budget and marketing 300 million= 100 million profit). That's a absolutely great thing because usually that means good word of mouth (toys, shirts , lunch boxes etc).

That's why it's bad for a movie like Eternals to make 400 million on a 230 million dollar budget, that's a indicator of bad worth and reception. Which absolutely effects merchandise, nobody is gonna buy Eternals toys.

submitted by /u/Youngstown_Mafia
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