[cryptical]

Like I said, next week's box office should tell if "DaVinci" is truly a money maker or not. My sense is that it will not be a money maker.

I think they've already doubled their money, so unless there's a magic profit margin that marks a "money maker", you may be wrong.

[Antoninus]

I think they've already doubled their money, so unless there's a magic profit margin that marks a "money maker", you may be wrong.

Not sure about that. I think they may have "doubled" their production costs. However, that does not take into account the huge amount they sunk into promotion, the theater's cut of the proceeds, etc.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

[N. Theknow]

I think they've already doubled their money, so unless there's a magic profit margin that marks a "money maker", you may be wrong.

Usually, the marketing costs are about the same as the cost to make a movie. So a $125 Million cost of making a movie means $250 Million total cost when marketing is added into the expense column.

Or so I am told.

[wideawake]

I think they've already doubled their money

They spent as much or possibly more promoting the film than they did actually making it. At best, they are approaching breakeven.

[wideawake]

Remember that a movie needs to generate several times what it cost to make in order to generate strong profits: if a movie cost $100M to make and made $100M at the box office, 60% of the box office take went to the exhibitor to cover his overhead.

So a movie like that actually has a 60% loss, not a breakeven margin.