In the past cinema year 2022, numerous extremely successful blockbusters such as the Marvel work “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”, the late sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water” or “Top Gun: Maverick” with superstar Tom Cruise (60 ) the global cinema audience. However, the pure box office results of these hit films do not reflect how much money a studio actually makes from them in the end. Rather, a myriad of costs must be deducted. In addition to the film budget, this includes the participation of the cinemas in the sales of the screenings. There are also costs for marketing and the profit sharing of filmmakers and actors.
The US industry magazine “Deadline” has therefore calculated the many different items mentioned against each other in meticulous research in order to determine a top ten list of the films that were actually most profitable for the film studios in the past year. And on that list, unsurprisingly, James Cameron’s (68) “Avatar: The Way of Water” takes first place. The blockbuster sci-fi adventure, which has grossed over $2.3 billion worldwide, brought in $531.7 million for producing studio Disney.
Disney received over $1.2 billion in theatrical revenue. In addition, “Deadline” estimated sales from the home theater, TV and streaming areas, whereby “Avatar 2” should generate a full $1.6 billion in revenue for Disney. From this, the film budget of 400 million dollars, marketing costs of 175 million dollars and a breathtaking profit share of 300 million dollars, which, according to information from the US newspaper, mainly goes to director, screenwriter, cutter and producer Cameron and his production partner Jon Landau (62) should go. After deducting a few other smaller items, this results in the sum of $531.7 million mentioned above.
The second most profitable film of the past year is “Top Gun: Maverick”. The sequel to the 1980s cult film “Top Gun” (1986) is said to have generated $1.145 billion in sales for the Paramount film studio. After deducting the items just mentioned, that leaves a profit of an impressive $391.1 million.
The third place in the list of the most profitable films is occupied by the animated work “Minions – In Search of the Mini-Boss”. The second film about the popular yellow Minions and fifth entry in the “Despicable Me” franchise brought in $382 million after all costs were deducted from the Universal film studio.
