dwight@timeinc.UUCP (Dwight Ernest) (12/20/84)
Seen on the wire today; thought it would be interesting in light of the divergent opinions from those who've seen DUNE: "HOLLYWOOD (AP) -- `Beverly Hills Cop' single-handedly subdued a mob of Christmas releases over the weekend... [it] grossed $11.5 million during the weekend to boost its 12-day total to $36.5 million for an average of more than $3 million a day. "`Dune,' the sage of an arid planet's squabbles based on the popular Frank Herbert science fiction novel, opened well despite the pressure from the leader, taking in $6 million at 915 theaters." That makes it second place for the week. It outranked "City Heat," "2010," "The Cotton Club," "Starman," and "Runaway," which were, together, followed by everything else that's in current release. -- --Dwight Ernest KA2CNN \ Usenet:...vax135!timeinc!dwight Time Inc. Editorial Technology Group, New York City Voice: (212) 554-5061 \ Compuserve: 70210,523 \ EIES: 1228 Telemail: DERNEST/TIMECOMDIV/TIMEINC \ MCI: DERNEST "The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Time Incorporated or its management." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (12/26/84)
I'm not surprised that "Dune" opened up to $6 million business. The financial
charm of "Dune" was that many million copies of the book had been sold, and a
substantial number of the buyers would
be certain to flock to the film quickly, dragging their friends with them.
However, the movie cost $40 million or
so. Conventional Hollywood wisdom says that it must earn back about $100-$120
million before it goes into profits for its financers. If ten million copies of
"Dune" were sold, and every buyer ent
to see the movie, bringing along a friend,
then, assuming ~$4 per ticket (what with
children's admissions and bargain matinees and so on), that's $80 million.
Another 10 million people who hadn't read the book would have to buy tickets.
$40 million (the discrepancy) is a very good gross for anything but a blockbuster,
nowadays. To make a lot of money off of "Dune", De Laurentiis is counting on
repeated viewings of the film by large numbers of fans, a la "Star Wars".
I don't think most people will want to see "Dune" twice, I don't think quite as
many as ten million copies of the book
werre sold, I don't think that everyone
(or even nearly everyone) who bought the book will go to the movie, and I think that
they will have trouble getting those other 10 million people in to see it.
My guess is that after foreign screenings, cable sales, video cassettes, and a
network TV sale, "Dune" will show a
modest profit, mostly off of fans of the book.
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher