2010 has been a terrible year for bid-budget movies

[Great Rumbler]

Hey if I make a million dollar profit, I win, that's just all there is to it. These guys got a profit of several million. That's not something any human being has any right complaining about.

Except you're working from the basis that these movies made even a million dollars of profit.

For example, Prince of Persia had a $200 million production budget and $75 million advertising budget. At most, that would be a $60 million profit, EXCEPT theater take has to be taken into account. The rule of thumb is 3x production budget, meaning Prince of Persia would have needed to reach $600 million before the profits started coming in.

I wouldn't take that rule of thumb as the absolute truth all the time, but the likelihood that Prince of Persia [and Robin Hood, The Last Airbender, and Sorcerer's Apprentice] made negative profit is pretty high.

And, it's not enough to say "Well, we got a million dollars of profit, so great job everybody!", there's also expectations to take into account. If the studio EXPECTED to make far more than that, they can be hurt by getting far less. As in, the stock market.

Also, these movies are tent-pole movies, designed to cost a lot and make a lot to offset losses from other, smaller movies. These are the movies where the studio makes its profits from and these movies failed to deliver, big time.

Consider this as well: studio expenses aren't just related to movie production, there are a great deal of costs outside that which are ultimately taken into account in the grand total at the end of the year, a couple movies with a profit of $1 million might not be enough to offset those expenses.