@DRDMovieMusings said:

This movie is a good example for why the death of "box office" could be, overall, a good thing.

Great movies don't always do well at the box office. And sometimes, crappy movies make a lot of money and encourage more people to go see crap.

To observe that this movie lost money is to suggest that it wasn't very good. And that's a shame, because it was pretty good.

My movie ROI database now has over 1000 titles in it, from 1926-2019; of these, just 72 movies returned less than $1 for each $1 of budget. Reasons why movies fail to cover costs vary, from controversies to timing vs. what other movies are being released, to short theatrical run, to this, to that...it's not always simply that the movie was bad. As such, perhaps it's not all bad that streaming is displacing theatrical release so that there are no sales numbers to track.

Part of the reason it lost money I think was due to the fact that reviews weren't that good. Which probably meant the studio lost confidence in it and didn't push it like they should have. I only watched it because I was interested in the material and I'm glad I did as the film did seem to have been treated unfairly. The only thing more frustrating than a good film losing money is when a good film loses money and gets bad reviews. Especially when you can see that the filmmakers put care and work into what they were doing and weren't just out to make money. It's got to be pretty soul crushing for them.

As far as I can tell, this film made profit just from box office alone.

@JustinJackFlash said:

@DRDMovieMusings said:

This movie is a good example for why the death of "box office" could be, overall, a good thing.

Great movies don't always do well at the box office. And sometimes, crappy movies make a lot of money and encourage more people to go see crap.

To observe that this movie lost money is to suggest that it wasn't very good. And that's a shame, because it was pretty good.

My movie ROI database now has over 1000 titles in it, from 1926-2019; of these, just 72 movies returned less than $1 for each $1 of budget. Reasons why movies fail to cover costs vary, from controversies to timing vs. what other movies are being released, to short theatrical run, to this, to that...it's not always simply that the movie was bad. As such, perhaps it's not all bad that streaming is displacing theatrical release so that there are no sales numbers to track.

Part of the reason it lost money I think was due to the fact that reviews weren't that good. Which probably meant the studio lost confidence in it and didn't push it like they should have. I only watched it because I was interested in the material and I'm glad I did as the film did seem to have been treated unfairly. The only thing more frustrating than a good film losing money is when a good film loses money and gets bad reviews. Especially when you can see that the filmmakers put care and work into what they were doing and weren't just out to make money. It's got to be pretty soul crushing for them.

Good points.

One thing about "soul crushing" - movie stars and movie makers all know it's a numbers game. Look at the credits for your favourite actor or director and you'll see so many titles that bombed. It takes a lot of striking out to hit a few home runs.

Which is to say, they don't get overly invested in many projects or colleagues. We fans will watch a movie, see chemistry between actors and wonder why they don't make more movies together. And there are actors/directors who do look to work together on multiple projects. But, more often than not, they work together, the film goes in the can, it was great, and they move on to new things.

And the movie may succeed or fail, but they just keep plowing. That's the business, and that's (apparently) the best way to keep pushing through the strikeouts to get to the next home run.

@MongoLloyd said:

As far as I can tell, this film made profit just from box office alone.

All I look at is revenues over budget. It appears it only brought in $24M on a budget of $25M. If, however, that $24M is only domestic and there's more money that hasn't been counted, we should update the entry.

@DRDMovieMusings said:

a budget of $25M.

IndieWire gives the budget as $7 Million and another source I found gives it as $15 Million.

@MongoLloyd said:

@DRDMovieMusings said:

a budget of $25M.

IndieWire gives the budget as $7 Million and another source I found gives it as $15 Million.

Yep, I've seen those. Maybe go ahead and edit the TMDb page if you feel the sources are reliable. Based on all I've seen, a budget of $12M - to $15M, for a decent ROI of just under ~2x, makes sense; a $7M budget would've fetched an ROI of >3x and that seems high, to me.

Edit: I changed the TMDb entry to a budget of $15M.

Anyway, I'd have to ask what kind of bio pics do well these days and what else was released when this was released. I do recall telling people it was very good.

@MongoLloyd said:

Anyway, I'd have to ask what kind of bio pics do well these days and what else was released when this was released. I do recall telling people it was very good.

Good questions! I've got 16 movies in my ROI database that I tagged as "docudrama" - here are some ROI samples:

• The Great Escape, 1963, starring Steve McQueen, strong 80% rating, paid $2.94 for each budget $1

• Dolemite, 1975, low budget, paid a ridiculous $100 for each budget $1

• All the President's Men, 1976, starrring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, paid a smart $8.31 for each budget $1

• Goodfellas, 1990, starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta, paid $1.87

• Schindler's List, 1993, starring Liam Neeson and Ben Kingsley, paid a terrific $14.60

• Casino, 1995, starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Sharon Stone, James Woods, paid $2.23

• Amistad, 1997, starring Djimon Hounsou, Morgan Freeman, Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Hopkins, paid $2.06

• Frost/Nixon, 2008, starring Michasel Sheen, Frank Langella, lost money/did not break even

• Selma, 2014, starring Davd Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo, Tim Roth, paid a sharp $3.34

• Ford v. Ferrari, 2019, starring Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Jon Bernthal, paid $2.28

Over the decades, ROI is a toss-up, depending on the topic/subject matter, star power of the cast, etc. As far as this kind of movie is concerned, paying anything near or north of $2 is an accomplishment, so that shows well for The Founder.

In terms of the year, 2016, and what was competing with The Founder for viewer dollars, in terms of box office:

• Creed raked in $1.1Bn
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story raked in $1Bn
• Finding Dory also took its place in the $1Bn club
• Split did a decent $278M
• The Conjuring 2 did $320M
• _Sully _did $240M
• the cerebral Arrival did $203M
• Ben Affleck's quasi attempt at Bourne-style to keep up with his pal Matt Damon, The Accountant managed to pull in $154M
• speaking of whom/which, Jason Bourne put up a pretty decent $415M

A movie like The Founder isn't the kind of movie that anyone was expecting to put up big numbers. And, as long as it covered the bills put a little back into producers' pockets, it's all good!

Looks like stiff competition with The Accountant, Jason Bourne, Split, Sully, Arrival, and Star Wars®.

@MongoLloyd said:

Looks like stiff competition with The Accountant, Jason Bourne, Split, Sully, Arrival, and Star Wars®.

Yep, there's only so many dollars out there, those movies sponged up most of it, The Founder did pretty good for crumbs!

Yeah, I'd agree. Such terrible timing for the release.