The New Math

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I think Pacific Rim is going to KILL in the dvd/bluray release sales.

I've also read that the action figures, or whatever it is you kids call them these days, are SOLD OUT.

They were selling so far beyond expectations that they had to start a 2nd run BEFORE the move was released, and will end up having to do a 3rd or 4th run before the end of the year.

The problem for DVD is that the market is a fraction of the size it was 10 years ago. Back then, when Family Guy was saved from cancellation twice by DVD sales, being #1 meant you sold maybe 10 million copies. Now it means you sell maybe 1 million copies - and when your budget is 200-300 million, that just ain't going to cut it. (ETA - For something like Dredd which has a budget of 20-30million, that may be enough to put it into black ink though)

For the action figures - it depends how many were produced. Certainly consumer merchandising is A Thing (I think Cars is actually the most profitable Pixar movie based on several billion dollars worth of toy sales), but it's MUCH harder to gauge. But, to give you an idea of the scale, in 2012 Warner Bros reported $1.9billion dollars in box office revenue from their film division... and only $208million in revenue from merchandising (and bear in mind this was a year that included Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit).

Have you got any sales numbers on that? I'd have figured the DVD market to have grown since then, not shrunk. Especially if you include blu-rays. I mean yes, a lot of people rent these days either through Netflix or through kiosks like Redbox, but a lot of people rented back in the day, too. It was just through Blockbuster instead. Besides, Netflix isn't anywhere near as big a part of the market as people in its primary demographic assume it is. They think its huge because all their friends have it, but all their friends have it because they're all in the target market, which is much smaller than the market as a whole.

 

[Korskarn]

I think Pacific Rim is going to KILL in the dvd/bluray release sales.

I've also read that the action figures, or whatever it is you kids call them these days, are SOLD OUT.

They were selling so far beyond expectations that they had to start a 2nd run BEFORE the move was released, and will end up having to do a 3rd or 4th run before the end of the year.

The problem for DVD is that the market is a fraction of the size it was 10 years ago. Back then, when Family Guy was saved from cancellation twice by DVD sales, being #1 meant you sold maybe 10 million copies. Now it means you sell maybe 1 million copies - and when your budget is 200-300 million, that just ain't going to cut it. (ETA - For something like Dredd which has a budget of 20-30million, that may be enough to put it into black ink though)

For the action figures - it depends how many were produced. Certainly consumer merchandising is A Thing (I think Cars is actually the most profitable Pixar movie based on several billion dollars worth of toy sales), but it's MUCH harder to gauge. But, to give you an idea of the scale, in 2012 Warner Bros reported $1.9billion dollars in box office revenue from their film division... and only $208million in revenue from merchandising (and bear in mind this was a year that included Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit).

Have you got any sales numbers on that? I'd have figured the DVD market to have grown since then, not shrunk. Especially if you include blu-rays. I mean yes, a lot of people rent these days either through Netflix or through kiosks like Redbox, but a lot of people rented back in the day, too. It was just through Blockbuster instead. Besides, Netflix isn't anywhere near as big a part of the market as people in its primary demographic assume it is. They think its huge because all their friends have it, but all their friends have it because they're all in the target market, which is much smaller than the market as a whole.

Sure, from http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/annual/2013.php

Rank	Name	Units Sold	Revenue	Date
1	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2	4,485,411	$67,287,266	3/02/2013
2	Wreck-It Ralph	2,640,606	$49,739,921	3/05/2013
3	Taken 2	2,525,522	$41,823,685	1/15/2013
4	Hotel Transylvania	2,522,847	$46,572,063	1/29/2013
5	The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey	2,214,027	$28,309,703	3/19/2013
6	Skyfall	2,160,809	$38,838,690	2/12/2013
7	Rise of the Guardians	1,936,668	$34,387,915	3/12/2013
8	Pitch Perfect	1,744,205	$29,107,750	12/18/2012
9	Lincoln	1,508,367	$29,166,040	3/26/2013
10	Les Miserables	1,398,040	$27,092,696	3/22/2013
11	Argo	1,321,039	$19,630,614	2/19/2013
12	Django Unchained	1,292,185	$23,818,974	4/16/2013
13	Life of Pi	1,166,882	$19,047,457	3/12/2013
14	Flight	1,161,539	$17,215,847	2/05/2013
15	Tyler Perry's Madea Gets a Job: The Play	1,147,906	$14,439,717	2/05/2013
16	Looper	1,131,337	$20,034,618	12/31/2012
17	Madly Madagascar	1,066,324	$5,704,379	1/29/2013
18	Safe Haven	980,136	$16,794,290	5/07/2013
19	Ted	971,178	$17,275,988	12/11/2012
20	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 & 2	926,295	$37,588,727	3/02/2013

As a disclaimer, I'm not sure if this is before or after the retailer takes their cut, but even $30mil straight up into WB's pocket is a fraction of the $190mil production budget, let alone including Prints and Advertising.

ETA - compare this to the top 5 from 2007:

Rank	Name	Units Sold	Revenue	Date
1	Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End	13,699,490	$279,046,391	12/04/2007
2	Transformers	13,251,378	$251,422,291	10/16/2007
3	Happy Feet	12,225,634	$196,875,350	3/27/2007
4	300	12,110,490	$243,204,618	7/31/2007
5	Ratatouille	11,233,232	$169,016,024	11/06/2007

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I think Pacific Rim is going to KILL in the dvd/bluray release sales.

I've also read that the action figures, or whatever it is you kids call them these days, are SOLD OUT.

They were selling so far beyond expectations that they had to start a 2nd run BEFORE the move was released, and will end up having to do a 3rd or 4th run before the end of the year.

The problem for DVD is that the market is a fraction of the size it was 10 years ago. Back then, when Family Guy was saved from cancellation twice by DVD sales, being #1 meant you sold maybe 10 million copies. Now it means you sell maybe 1 million copies - and when your budget is 200-300 million, that just ain't going to cut it. (ETA - For something like Dredd which has a budget of 20-30million, that may be enough to put it into black ink though)

For the action figures - it depends how many were produced. Certainly consumer merchandising is A Thing (I think Cars is actually the most profitable Pixar movie based on several billion dollars worth of toy sales), but it's MUCH harder to gauge. But, to give you an idea of the scale, in 2012 Warner Bros reported $1.9billion dollars in box office revenue from their film division... and only $208million in revenue from merchandising (and bear in mind this was a year that included Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit).

Have you got any sales numbers on that? I'd have figured the DVD market to have grown since then, not shrunk. Especially if you include blu-rays. I mean yes, a lot of people rent these days either through Netflix or through kiosks like Redbox, but a lot of people rented back in the day, too. It was just through Blockbuster instead. Besides, Netflix isn't anywhere near as big a part of the market as people in its primary demographic assume it is. They think its huge because all their friends have it, but all their friends have it because they're all in the target market, which is much smaller than the market as a whole.

Sure, from http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/annual/2013.php

Rank Name Units Sold Revenue Date
1 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 4,485,411 $67,287,266 3/2/2013
2 Wreck-It Ralph 2,640,606 $49,739,921 3/5/2013
3 Taken 2 2,525,522 $41,823,685 1/15/2013
4 Hotel Transylvania 2,522,847 $46,572,063 1/29/2013
5 The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 2,214,027 $28,309,703 3/19/2013
6 Skyfall 2,160,809 $38,838,690 2/12/2013
7 Rise of the Guardians 1,936,668 $34,387,915 3/12/2013
8 Pitch Perfect 1,744,205 $29,107,750 12/18/2012
9 Lincoln 1,508,367 $29,166,040 3/26/2013
10 Les Miserables 1,398,040 $27,092,696 3/22/2013
11 Argo 1,321,039 $19,630,614 2/19/2013
12 Django Unchained 1,292,185 $23,818,974 4/16/2013
13 Life of Pi 1,166,882 $19,047,457 3/12/2013
14 Flight 1,161,539 $17,215,847 2/5/2013
15 Tyler Perry's Madea Gets a Job: The Play 1,147,906 $14,439,717 2/5/2013
16 Looper 1,131,337 $20,034,618 12/31/2012
17 Madly Madagascar 1,066,324 $5,704,379 1/29/2013
18 Safe Haven 980,136 $16,794,290 5/7/2013
19 Ted 971,178 $17,275,988 12/11/2012
20 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 & 2 926,295 $37,588,727 3/2/2013

As a disclaimer, I'm not sure if this is before or after the retailer takes their cut, but even $30mil straight up into WB's pocket is a fraction of the $190mil production budget, let alone including Prints and Advertising.

The year's not over yet, though. If you go back to 2012, the numbers are showing a much bigger chunk of the budget:

Spoiler

1 The Hunger Games 7,434,058 $123,471,615 8/18/2012
2 Brave 5,892,322 $98,773,131 11/13/2012
3 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 5,493,464 $99,415,999 2/11/2012
4 The Lorax 5,090,768 $77,238,440 8/7/2012
5 The Avengers 4,761,539 $87,487,666 9/25/2012
6 The Dark Knight Rises 4,414,531 $55,553,591 12/4/2012
7 Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows 3,495,293 $44,699,552 6/12/2012
8 Ted 3,423,343 $57,681,246 12/11/2012
9 Madagascar 3: Europes's Most Wanted 3,059,470 $49,778,258 10/16/2012
10 Puss in Boots 2,730,987 $44,984,861 2/24/2012

Also, if you go back to, say, 2008, there's not a huge difference in the numbers there, either:

Spoiler

1 The Dark Knight 10,944,319 $191,678,574 12/9/2008
2 Iron Man 8,400,343 $151,418,631 9/30/2008
3 Alvin and the Chipmunks 7,559,643 $127,641,261 4/1/2008
4 Kung Fu Panda 7,486,642 $115,040,291 11/9/2008
5 WALL-E 7,413,548 $117,131,223 11/18/2008
6 I am Legend 7,043,136 $126,160,042 3/18/2008
7 National Treasure - Book of Secrets 5,863,257 $92,955,147 5/20/2008
8 Enchanted 5,322,631 $86,315,100 3/18/2008
9 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 5,314,370 $103,340,815 10/14/2008
10 Bee Movie 4,712,821 $75,473,009 3/11/2008

It's higher, but not so much higher that it makes more sense to say DVDs aren't as viable as they used to be -- it makes more sense to blame it on the economy, which hadn't totally tanked yet for most of 2008.

In fact, if you look at the numbers from 2011, those are the worst in the list, unless you think this year's numbers are going to stay where they are:

Spoiler

1 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 7,066,706 $85,930,362 4/15/2011
2 Tangled 6,296,456 $96,713,293 3/29/2011
3 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 5,828,243 $81,291,915 11/11/2011
4 Cars 2 4,405,462 $73,121,010 11/1/2011
5 Bridesmaids 3,873,255 $52,753,009 9/20/2011
6 Rio 3,435,164 $48,901,777 8/2/2011
7 Megamind 3,359,809 $42,899,423 2/25/2011
8 The Help 3,185,006 $54,592,230 12/6/2011
9 Despicable Me 2,749,996 $49,896,338 12/14/2010
10 Red 2,638,709 $34,061,665 1/25/2011

That means that whatever the issue was that year, sales have rebounded somewhat since.



Now there /is/ a significant jump if you go back to 2007 (which is sadly the earliest year they have numbers for), but again, the economy explains it: that year was totally pre-crash. I'd imagine if you compared ticket sales, you'd see a similar decline. Or at least you would in terms of numbers -- gross profit is up because ticket prices keep going up.

Finally, that site doesn't seem to track blu-ray sales, just DVD sales. If it's DVD only, that would more than explain the difference.

Edit: Ah, yes, Blu-Ray sales are a different chart on that site, and they just added it for this year, apparently: http://www.the-numbers.com/weekly-bluray-sales-chart

Looks like saying "disc based home video is dying" based on those DVD-only charts is about as premature as saying "PC gaming is dying" based on the Famitsu charts, which don't include digital distribution numbers.

 

[Korskarn]

*snip*

I had a look through the major studios' annual reports - only WB consistently breaks out DVD/Blu-Ray/Streaming, so here's that summary:

Year	Revenue From DVD/Blu-Ray/Streaming
2012	2,320
2011	2,866
2010	2,760
2009	2,820
2008	3,320
2007	3,483
2006	3,040
2005	3,619
2004	3,594

(numbers in millions of dollars)

Disney finally got around to breaking it out last year, and their home delivery number is about the same as WB ($2.241bil in 2012 down from $2.435bil in 2011). So... yeah... the original point that DVD/Blu-Ray may not save Pacific Rim still holds, those streams don't pull in as much money as they used to.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

*snip*

I had a look through the major studios' annual reports - only WB consistently breaks out DVD/Blu-Ray/Streaming, so here's that summary:

Year	Revenue From DVD/Blu-Ray/Streaming
2012	2,320
2011	2,866
2010	2,760
2009	2,820
2008	3,320
2007	3,483
2006	3,040
2005	3,619
2004	3,594

(numbers in millions of dollars)

Disney finally got around to breaking it out last year, and their home delivery number is about the same as WB ($2.241bil in 2012 down from $2.435bil in 2011). So... yeah... the original point that DVD/Blu-Ray may not save Pacific Rim still holds, those streams don't pull in as much money as they used to.

But look at the year where the decline happened -- 2008. What we're seeing isn't some strange decline in home sales. What we're seeing is a general decline in the economy as a whole. DVD/Blu-Ray may not be enough to save Pacific Rim, but if it is it's not because the home video market in particular is declining, it's because the entire economy is on the ropes.

 

[Jenny Jones]

Well at least this explains why good original series get cancelled and complete mindless rubbish gets 12 seasons of funding. Thanks for the info MovieBob.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

That's honestly baffled me - where was the hype for similar garbage like "Sharktopus" or all the other crap Syfy churns out? I've seen some gifs and jpegs that did slightly endear it to me (the "samurai chainsaw chop" is my favorite) but I can't for the life of me figure out what was the magic moment that made this more special than the others.

I think it just hit dumb-movie critical mass. It's something so utterly insane that it goes beyond standard crappy B-movie fare (which has gotten boring since there's so much of it) and straight into the sort of thing people on 4chan might come up with as a joke. It reminds me of stuff like Axe Cop or this video [http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/mockingbird].

Why do I have the horrible feeling that some Hollywood producer somewhere is giving serious thought to a live version of My Little Pony?

Why not? Hollywood birthed not one but two Smurf movies.

I think we're pretty well insulated from such a thing at this point. The position of "movie where one or more of the ponies gets magically sucked into the human world" has not only already been filled, it's spawned a TV series and toyline that are likely to stick around for quite some time. I suppose maybe it could work as a G1 adaptation, a la Transformers, with live-action actors playing Megan and her brother whose name I can't be bothered to look up. But given how Hasbro wasn't able to get the rights to use their own characters' names a few years ago, and that Friendship Is Magic has become such a runaway success for them, they probably have no more interest in reviving anything G1-related than they would in reviving Jem at this point.

 

[Jingle Fett]

snip

Sure, from http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/annual/2013.php

Rank	Name	Units Sold	Revenue	Date
1	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2	4,485,411	$67,287,266	3/02/2013
2	Wreck-It Ralph	2,640,606	$49,739,921	3/05/2013
3	Taken 2	2,525,522	$41,823,685	1/15/2013
4	Hotel Transylvania	2,522,847	$46,572,063	1/29/2013
5	The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey	2,214,027	$28,309,703	3/19/2013
6	Skyfall	2,160,809	$38,838,690	2/12/2013
7	Rise of the Guardians	1,936,668	$34,387,915	3/12/2013
8	Pitch Perfect	1,744,205	$29,107,750	12/18/2012
9	Lincoln	1,508,367	$29,166,040	3/26/2013
10	Les Miserables	1,398,040	$27,092,696	3/22/2013
11	Argo	1,321,039	$19,630,614	2/19/2013
12	Django Unchained	1,292,185	$23,818,974	4/16/2013
13	Life of Pi	1,166,882	$19,047,457	3/12/2013
14	Flight	1,161,539	$17,215,847	2/05/2013
15	Tyler Perry's Madea Gets a Job: The Play	1,147,906	$14,439,717	2/05/2013
16	Looper	1,131,337	$20,034,618	12/31/2012
17	Madly Madagascar	1,066,324	$5,704,379	1/29/2013
18	Safe Haven	980,136	$16,794,290	5/07/2013
19	Ted	971,178	$17,275,988	12/11/2012
20	The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 & 2	926,295	$37,588,727	3/02/2013

As a disclaimer, I'm not sure if this is before or after the retailer takes their cut, but even $30mil straight up into WB's pocket is a fraction of the $190mil production budget, let alone including Prints and Advertising.

ETA - compare this to the top 5 from 2007:

Rank	Name	Units Sold	Revenue	Date
1	Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End	13,699,490	$279,046,391	12/04/2007
2	Transformers	13,251,378	$251,422,291	10/16/2007
3	Happy Feet	12,225,634	$196,875,350	3/27/2007
4	300	12,110,490	$243,204,618	7/31/2007
5	Ratatouille	11,233,232	$169,016,024	11/06/2007

The $30 million might be just a fraction of the budget...but as of today, Pacific Rim has already made $178.5 million, which means it's getting really close to breaking even, without the DVD sales. That's only after the second weekend too, I expect if we give it another week or two that number will be even higher, and it will probably end up making a profit on its own without the DVD sales. Which will make me really happy if it does

 

[Korskarn]

The $30 million might be just a fraction of the budget...but as of today, Pacific Rim has already made $178.5 million, which means it's getting really close to breaking even, without the DVD sales. That's only after the second weekend too, I expect if we give it another week or two that number will be even higher, and it will probably end up making a profit on its own without the DVD sales. Which will make me really happy if it does

It's not even close to breaking even. The boxoffice numbers are the gross figures, or how much money people have handed over to the cinemas. The cinemas take their cut, which the common rule of thumb is 50%, which puts the amount of money WB/Legendary will receive so far under $100mil vs. the reported $190mil budget.

On top of that, the budget is only the production budget and does not include the costs of Prints and Advertising. When the MPAA stopped releasing data on P&A budgets in 2009 the average spend per movie was $65million - you can imagine for a summer movie positioned as a blockbuster Pac Rim's budget would be much higher than that, and costs would have probably increased over the last 4 years instead of decreased. So all-in the cost of Pac Rim would probably be in the region of $300mil and would need ~$600mil in boxoffice gross to break even just from ticket sales.

 

[Jingle Fett]

The $30 million might be just a fraction of the budget...but as of today, Pacific Rim has already made $178.5 million, which means it's getting really close to breaking even, without the DVD sales. That's only after the second weekend too, I expect if we give it another week or two that number will be even higher, and it will probably end up making a profit on its own without the DVD sales. Which will make me really happy if it does

It's not even close to breaking even. The boxoffice numbers are the gross figures, or how much money people have handed over to the cinemas. The cinemas take their cut, which the common rule of thumb is 50%, which puts the amount of money WB/Legendary will receive so far under $100mil vs. the reported $190mil budget.

On top of that, the budget is only the production budget and does not include the costs of Prints and Advertising. When the MPAA stopped releasing data on P&A budgets in 2009 the average spend per movie was $65million - you can imagine for a summer movie positioned as a blockbuster Pac Rim's budget would be much higher than that, and costs would have probably increased over the last 4 years instead of decreased. So all-in the cost of Pac Rim would probably be in the region of $300mil and would need ~$600mil in boxoffice gross to break even just from ticket sales.

You're right, my numbers were low and I was just looking at the raw production budget and Pacific Rim does need to make quite a bit more to break even. In the interest of accuracy, I consulted with a family member who works in the industry to see if you were right about the numbers and while my numbers are too low, yours are too high. By your numbers Man of Steel (having a higher budget than Pacific Rim and all) would have to make even more than $600 million just to break even, yet its already been considered a big commercial success.

The %50 cut figure isn't completely accurate, it is in most cases but the big studios have different arrangements and in the case of big studios like Warner Bros, its often closer to a 30/70 split rather than 50/50 (reason is because more people go to the bigger well known movies).
And with the Prints and Advertising costs, the costs in general have actually decreased. Advertising cost has remained about the same, but the print costs have gone down because most movie theaters are digital now, they don't have to print out as many film rolls.

But anyways, the rule of thumb for how much a movie needs to make to breaks even (including all th P&A stuff) is actually that it has to make back double the production budget, so in Pacific Rim's case it'd actually be around $380 million to break even.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

The $30 million might be just a fraction of the budget...but as of today, Pacific Rim has already made $178.5 million, which means it's getting really close to breaking even, without the DVD sales. That's only after the second weekend too, I expect if we give it another week or two that number will be even higher, and it will probably end up making a profit on its own without the DVD sales. Which will make me really happy if it does

It's not even close to breaking even. The boxoffice numbers are the gross figures, or how much money people have handed over to the cinemas. The cinemas take their cut, which the common rule of thumb is 50%, which puts the amount of money WB/Legendary will receive so far under $100mil vs. the reported $190mil budget.

On top of that, the budget is only the production budget and does not include the costs of Prints and Advertising. When the MPAA stopped releasing data on P&A budgets in 2009 the average spend per movie was $65million - you can imagine for a summer movie positioned as a blockbuster Pac Rim's budget would be much higher than that, and costs would have probably increased over the last 4 years instead of decreased. So all-in the cost of Pac Rim would probably be in the region of $300mil and would need ~$600mil in boxoffice gross to break even just from ticket sales.

You're right, my numbers were low and I was just looking at the raw production budget and Pacific Rim does need to make quite a bit more to break even. In the interest of accuracy, I consulted with a family member who works in the industry to see if you were right about the numbers and while my numbers are too low, yours are too high. By your numbers Man of Steel (having a higher budget than Pacific Rim and all) would have to make even more than $600 million just to break even, yet its already been considered a big commercial success.

The %50 cut figure isn't completely accurate, it is in most cases but the big studios have different arrangements and in the case of big studios like Warner Bros, its often closer to a 30/70 split rather than 50/50 (reason is because more people go to the bigger well known movies).
And with the Prints and Advertising costs, the costs in general have actually decreased. Advertising cost has remained about the same, but the print costs have gone down because most movie theaters are digital now, they don't have to print out as many film rolls.

But anyways, the rule of thumb for how much a movie needs to make to breaks even (including all th P&A stuff) is actually that it has to make back double the production budget, so in Pacific Rim's case it'd actually be around $380 million to break even.

Wow, so much movie nerd math in this thread. I like it!

The one thing I will say for Pac Rim though is that it's a bit early to totally count it out. It released on July 12th, which means at this point it hasn't even been out for a full two weeks. Despite that, it's already outsold The Lone Ranger (in total gross, thanks to those international numbers), which has been out for four. On the domestic side though, it's first week very nearly beat the first two weeks of The Lone Ranger, so I suspect that by the end of it's run it will have surpassed it both domestically and internationally.

What's the point though? It's just beating another flop, right? Well...not quite. It's beating another movie that, as MovieBob pointed out, was likely seen as a guaranteed success during it's production. It's a straight up genre flick by a genre director that's beating out the Depp juggernaut, and that might wake some people up. Sure, it might not be printing money, but perhaps it will open the door for more niche films with budgets that are a bit more modest. Guillermo's At The Mountain of Madness, for example.

That's the lesson I hope they'll start learning here. But who knows...

Data Source:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=pacificrim.htm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=loneranger.htm

 

[Korskarn]

The $30 million might be just a fraction of the budget...but as of today, Pacific Rim has already made $178.5 million, which means it's getting really close to breaking even, without the DVD sales. That's only after the second weekend too, I expect if we give it another week or two that number will be even higher, and it will probably end up making a profit on its own without the DVD sales. Which will make me really happy if it does

It's not even close to breaking even. The boxoffice numbers are the gross figures, or how much money people have handed over to the cinemas. The cinemas take their cut, which the common rule of thumb is 50%, which puts the amount of money WB/Legendary will receive so far under $100mil vs. the reported $190mil budget.

On top of that, the budget is only the production budget and does not include the costs of Prints and Advertising. When the MPAA stopped releasing data on P&A budgets in 2009 the average spend per movie was $65million - you can imagine for a summer movie positioned as a blockbuster Pac Rim's budget would be much higher than that, and costs would have probably increased over the last 4 years instead of decreased. So all-in the cost of Pac Rim would probably be in the region of $300mil and would need ~$600mil in boxoffice gross to break even just from ticket sales.

You're right, my numbers were low and I was just looking at the raw production budget and Pacific Rim does need to make quite a bit more to break even. In the interest of accuracy, I consulted with a family member who works in the industry to see if you were right about the numbers and while my numbers are too low, yours are too high. By your numbers Man of Steel (having a higher budget than Pacific Rim and all) would have to make even more than $600 million just to break even, yet its already been considered a big commercial success.

The %50 cut figure isn't completely accurate, it is in most cases but the big studios have different arrangements and in the case of big studios like Warner Bros, its often closer to a 30/70 split rather than 50/50 (reason is because more people go to the bigger well known movies).
And with the Prints and Advertising costs, the costs in general have actually decreased. Advertising cost has remained about the same, but the print costs have gone down because most movie theaters are digital now, they don't have to print out as many film rolls.

But anyways, the rule of thumb for how much a movie needs to make to breaks even (including all th P&A stuff) is actually that it has to make back double the production budget, so in Pacific Rim's case it'd actually be around $380 million to break even.

True, in the US larger studios can command a higher split for the opening weeks (which then changes in favour of the cinema for later weeks), but for international the split can be even less than 50% - studios have extraordinary trouble getting money out of China for example. Hence the 50% rule of thumb.

Also, "my" math was breaking even on ticket sales alone - you're correct that double the production budget is usually a sign of profitability. But that's because the assumption is that theatrical covers the production costs and ancillary covers the P&A. The common thing in movie threads is someone says a movie is already in or close to profit due to ticket sales (which is what your original claim was), which is pretty damn rare (and usually reserved for low budget Saw/Paranormal Activities, or the billion dollar Hobbit/Iron Man/Avengers club).

What I'm saying is that Pac Rim still has a way to go before profitability. While it's true that it is doing well in international, just to keep it in perspective it's a grand total of $1mil ahead of where Battleship was for international at this point - and we know how the success of that movie was perceived.