If they thought they had a good chance of losing that much money, they wouldn't have made the movie. The news here is more about how their risk calculations were off.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 weeks ago

And now they realise it isn't risk free after all.

[+] Frozengyro@lemmy.world -6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

To them? Yes it is

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

No, no it's not.

They can absorb the loss, but it's by no means small

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 weeks ago

Low risk is still risk

The movie's made nearly 100 mill worldwide. With brand new IP there's no guarantee to even get that much. Plus you'd need more marketing, etc.

They lost, but the risk was smaller than it could've been.

Think about two different scenarios:

Brand new IP, movie costs 250 mill to make, it could be the next Avatar and make well over a billion, or it could make 10 mill because nobody cares
Existing IP, almost certainly going to make under a billion, but there's essentially no way it'll make significantly under 100 million against the same budget of 250 mill.

Which one is low risk and which one is high risk?