More movie blockbusters that nobody is talking about

Movies
1

Now that 30 or so movies a year end up topping $100m in US box office receipts, that definition of a blockbuster probably isn’t very relevant. But its still a quick way to identify the financially successful films.

I bring that up because we already have two movies in 2012 that have crossed that line. And neither seems particularly notable. The Vow is a romantic drama released right around Valentine’s Day. And Safe House is an action thriller that came out the same day (and the #3 movie so far this year came out the same day as well oddly enough).

It’s an interesting start to the movie year anyway.

2

When big films routinely have budgets over 100 million, not really.

The easiest simple way to approximate (please lets not go nuts here, with studio funky accounting and ancillary money we’re only trying to get into the ballpark) if a film is financially successful is to compare its worldwide box office to its production budget multiplied by two. So, in the case of Safe House, the movie had a budget of 85 million. Double that to 170 million. Compare it to the money it’s made worldwide (136 million): Not yet a financial success.