From: a0s5108@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Neal and Mara Priestly)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies
Subject: Will Malcolm X make money for anyone? (Was: Re: TOP TEN MOVIES...)
Date: 5 Jan 1993 11:55:50 -0500
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
NNTP-Posting-Host: titan.ucc.umass.edu

In article <76027@apple.apple.COM> mattm@Apple.COM (Matthew Melmon) writes:
>isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell) writes:
>
>>|One might call the film a "White Elephant" if one were a particularly
>>|masochistic pundit.
>
>>Or not.  How much of the cost of the film was donated by Cosby, Oprah,
>>Jordan, Lee himself, et al?  Wasn't it order 15 million?
>

[delitia]

>payback would not occur until the film returned to the studio
>what it cost to produce - and for that to happen, it will have to
>roughly double its cost in gross (so, 66 million) *plus* ten
>million for promotional expenses (that's probably a low estimate).
>
>So, until it hauls in 76 million, nobody makes any money (except
>the theater owners - maybe).
>

Gee...all this time and I am the first one to raise this point...

Contrary to popular opinion, theatres are not the profit gold mines
that they would seem.  This is because up to 90% of the ticket price
goes to the film distributor, and not to my bottom line.  If it were
a 50/50 split, you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a movie
theatre.  (NOTE:  I'm not going into the whole thing, but there is
a *tenuous* grip on reality for the 50/50 arguement....I've posted
it before when someone flamed me, but didn't think to save it to
repost periodically...)

There is also the additional expense in the case of this film of bad
customer feelings in many locations.  Four locations in the NE 
division of my employer had the film pulled by Warner Bros. so that
we could play Forever Young, a move that is just a RH from a very
illegal process known as block booking (if you want film A, you
must play dog...oops sorry...film B.)  There was still a fair amount
of demand for Malcolm when it left.  Contrary to a lot of opinion
I have seen both on the net and around the area this is a very
white (and ultra liberal...someone once described the area here as
"So far left, it's in danger of falling off") middle class set of
communities, and the farmers outnumber the academics about 3:1.
They came out because it was a good film.  Many were (understandably,
IMO) bent when they found it left for Forever Young.

It's difficult to determine financial performance per film in a 
multi-plex setting, but I would be willing to bet that most short
term engagements like mine probably were within +/- $1k for this
film for the month it ran, many right at the break even point.
Spike is probably not the only one to have taken a bath.

Note also:  I  am glad the film was made.  Malcolm was killed a few 
years prior to my entry into this world, and he has probably had about
5 minutes of classroom exposure to myself and my classmates, out of
context and never with a perpective that was capable of sympathy to
his goals and acknowledgement of the barriers to his message.  While
you can question the bias Spike brought to the film, there is plenty
opposing bias to Malcolm's message out there as well, and everyone 
will filter fact and history through thier own perceptions and 
predjudices.  At least you know where Spike is coming from and what
his sources are....

-Neal