Beyond Ticket Sales: What Movies Make From Streaming and Television

Having long been aware that theatrical release is only part of how a film makes back the money put into them, when I offer my estimates of "hit" and "flop," money-maker and money-loser, I try to emphasize that I am only assessing the economics of the theatrical release, and not the overall performance. This is partly because important as the box office is in itself, and indicative as it tends to be of the broader outcome (it is generally the theatrical hit that makes the most in home entertainment, and merchandising, and vice-versa), it is not everything, with the figures on home entertainment and the like that tend to be less available sometimes making an important difference.

As it happens Deadline's "Most Valuable Blockbuster Tournament" of many years now has given us a far from comprehensive but still noteworthy base of information for judging film earnings from home entertainment options like streaming and television--indeed, one plausibly useful enough that it seems to me that some generalization about how this works these days is possible. Going by the data it collected for 2015-2019 in reasonably consistent fashion, with the pattern of which Deadline's figures for 2022 seem broadly consistent, it seems that the ten or so most profitable "blockbusters" of the year make about 57 percent of their net earnings from theaters, 43 percent from the home entertainment/streaming/TV options. The biggest hits in theaters tend to make the most money from the other sources, too, but they still tend to make relatively more of their net from theaters, the lower earners relatively less. Thus Avengers 3 and 4 picked up two-thirds of their money theatrically, Avatar 2 almost four-fifths of its money in theaters at last check, while the horror hit Smile made less than half there, and Strange World not much more than a quarter.

The last of these films verifies the principle that the theatrical release is usually the key indicator. That Strange World made via home entertainment, TV, streaming three times what it did from theatrical releases did not save it from being the worst flop of the year, leaving Disney "another $200 million in the red..)

All the same, there are sometimes significant surprises, with Black Panther 2 a case in point. Its $325 million from home entertainment, television, streaming made the difference between its barely breaking even, or losing money (its theatrical run was not unjustly seen as a disappointment), and its being one of the most profitable big movies of 2022.