On the surface, Twisters presents as a goldmine, having opened to a surprising $80.5 million in its first weekend while steadily maintaining a sizeable audience thereafter. It's sparked many viral clips featuring the Twisters cast , and has attracted viewers in multiple quadrants, speaking to its mass-market appeal.
The 2024 event movie may seem like it’s printing cash for Universal Pictures, but this isn’t actually the case when it comes to the bottom line. There’s a lot more financial finagling that goes into a movie’s gross, with tons of hidden costs that help prevent movies as big as Twisters from making a profit. At least from appearing as if they did, for one reason or another.
Twisters reportedly had a budget of $155 million, which is obviously high, but also becoming closer to the average for modern-day blockbusters. Costs don’t end there, and oftentimes, the advertising budget (known as P&L) for a movie this huge is almost double what the production budget is. Estimates allegedly have P&L for Twisters to be $100 million , which could still be a conservative number.
That means that the movie is starting at $255 million just to offset costs, a high mark to hit for a sequel to a movie that’s almost 30 years old. It’s also important to note that not every dollar a movie makes goes to the profit of the studios. Around half of the ticket sales go to the theaters that are distributing the films.
Because of this, it is expected that Twisters will have to make a.