The film in this example is then sold to a distributor. That distributor will pay $5 million for the rights to distribute the film. The payment is actually an advance against future earnings. The distributor will then license the film to theaters across the globe. Although the revenues generally are split between the theaters and the distributors, the actual transactions are much more complicated. 49 Distributors may keep as much as 90% of the first week's box office revenue (though none of the popcorn or other concession profits), but these are on a sliding scale so it will be 80% of the second week; 70% of the third week and so on.5 As part of this arrangement,however, the distributor will be obligated to spend millions of dollars in television, radio, newspaper, and billboard advertising.5' A $10 million film could potentially have a $30 million to $50 million advertising budget, if the distributor anticipated it could prove to be a smash movie. After six weeks in theaters, the movie earned $100 million, making it a small summer blockbuster. The theaters collectively earned $50 million; the distributor recouped its $50 million in advertising; but there are no additional funds leftover. In fact, the distributor never recouped its $5 million initial advance. For the filmmakers, the investors lost half of their investment and neither the producer nor anyone else received any deferred compensation.
Assume instead a movie of the same budget with an advertising budget of $30 million and a gross profit of $100 million. In that case, the distributor would recoup both its advertising budget and its advance. Of the $15million in profit to the distributor, it would typically retain approximately one third or $5 million. The remaining $10 million would go the production company and the investors would recoup their initial investment - though without any profit. Again neither the producer nor anyone else among the artists, cast, and crew would receive any deferred compensation.
The film distributor is in the best position among all the parties to manage the risk. It can determine how much initially to advance to acquire the rights to a film and decide on a daily basis how much to invest in advertising for a particular project. So long as the advertising is showing are turn on investment, the distributor will keep pumping up the advertising support. If a project is at risk, the distributor can quickly retreat. Theaters can move films from larger to smaller screens and drop films that are under producing, but they commit on a weekly basis and have much less information available upon which to make such adjustments.
The film company has no flexibility. Once its production budget is set, it cannot adjust the scale of the project. It takes the majority of the risk and has the least ability to manage that risk. This risk explains why investors are given preference over the artists, but does little to rationalize the overall system.