The "ultimate" covering cinemas, home video, pay TV and free TV made me wonder how much a Disney greenlight model leaves out. In its June-quarter letter, Disney said live-action Moana's box office came in below its expectations. In the same letter it pointed out that the franchise now includes three films, a themed area at EPCOT and a large global merchandise business, and it credited World of Frozen for strong attendance growth at Disneyland Paris. For a studio that owns theme parks, a film can miss its greenlight number and still pay off years later as a land or a ride. I'd love to know whether anyone tries to put that into the model, or whether it lives in the "story" part of the decision.
This is great diagnostic work. I’ve sat in those rooms. And yes Katie, theme park and merch/licensing is in the model for those studios that make significant revenue from those line items.
I can confidently say there is no time in Hollywood history that a movie like "Digger" -- poor reviews + bad WOM + ambiguous marketing + massive budget + quirky story + movie star who hasn't been bankable outside franchises for 25 years -- would be a hit.
So everyone bemoaning "the death of original filmmaking" in favor of data-driven decision-making needs to come back down to Earth.
I know what you’re saying but green light models are two years or so out from the release. So the reviews, marketing, and word of mouth are not accessible.
This. And also, if *Tom Cruise* is excited about doing a project with Alejandro Iñárritu (The Revenant! Birdman!) playing a character that's sort of like his fun/weird turn in Tropic Thunder, and the model says it'll work financially, saying "no" seems like a fast path to the unemployment line. Hard to picture an exec with enough juice to shut that down.
De Luca and Abdy lost their jobs because David Ellison wanted to bring his own guys, Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein to lead the combined motion picture group. Also, I haven't done the maths, but WB took much bigger swings than Paramount, who's 2026 was mostly moderately successful smaller projects... $10-20M pictures that clear $30-40M BO... not bad, but not great either. (Especially if you need to crawl out from under $80B in debt)
But no, I don't know what the model said and the budget sounds insane. Maybe Cruise promised something fabulous in exchange for indulging a passion project? (bringing Top Gun 3+ and a MI reboot over from Paramount... haha) Or maybe he had dirt on Zazlav? Or maybe they just saw a world in which Digger connects with the Zeitgeist in a big way...
Understood, I'm just including those as further knocks against the film.
The closest comp is "Birdman." The budget for that appears to be sub-$20M and it made $100M. So even *with* strong WOM, reviews, and marketing, "Digger" had almost no chance of earning a profit on its $150M+ budget.
There's just no justification for that kind of budget, especially in an environment where ancillary revenue (e.g. home video) has all-but dried up.
Also, I'm troubled but not surprised by the horrifically lazy grammar of these powerful, highly paid studio execs.
Yeah, yeah, we get it, you're too busy to write a clear email. Much easier to just yell at or fire the subordinate who doesn't understand what you meant.
Enlightening. Thank you. This makes me wonder if professional sports have similar metrics of putting certain athletes and coaches together on the same team.
The "ultimate" covering cinemas, home video, pay TV and free TV made me wonder how much a Disney greenlight model leaves out. In its June-quarter letter, Disney said live-action Moana's box office came in below its expectations. In the same letter it pointed out that the franchise now includes three films, a themed area at EPCOT and a large global merchandise business, and it credited World of Frozen for strong attendance growth at Disneyland Paris. For a studio that owns theme parks, a film can miss its greenlight number and still pay off years later as a land or a ride. I'd love to know whether anyone tries to put that into the model, or whether it lives in the "story" part of the decision.
This is great diagnostic work. I’ve sat in those rooms. And yes Katie, theme park and merch/licensing is in the model for those studios that make significant revenue from those line items.
Sorry for your loss.
I can confidently say there is no time in Hollywood history that a movie like "Digger" -- poor reviews + bad WOM + ambiguous marketing + massive budget + quirky story + movie star who hasn't been bankable outside franchises for 25 years -- would be a hit.
So everyone bemoaning "the death of original filmmaking" in favor of data-driven decision-making needs to come back down to Earth.
I know what you’re saying but green light models are two years or so out from the release. So the reviews, marketing, and word of mouth are not accessible.
This. And also, if *Tom Cruise* is excited about doing a project with Alejandro Iñárritu (The Revenant! Birdman!) playing a character that's sort of like his fun/weird turn in Tropic Thunder, and the model says it'll work financially, saying "no" seems like a fast path to the unemployment line. Hard to picture an exec with enough juice to shut that down.
Fair, but those same execs (Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy) just lost their jobs despite a banner 2025 because 2026 stunk.
Also, *did* the model say "Digger" would work financially? I might have missed this, but I'm highly skeptical.
De Luca and Abdy lost their jobs because David Ellison wanted to bring his own guys, Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein to lead the combined motion picture group. Also, I haven't done the maths, but WB took much bigger swings than Paramount, who's 2026 was mostly moderately successful smaller projects... $10-20M pictures that clear $30-40M BO... not bad, but not great either. (Especially if you need to crawl out from under $80B in debt)
But no, I don't know what the model said and the budget sounds insane. Maybe Cruise promised something fabulous in exchange for indulging a passion project? (bringing Top Gun 3+ and a MI reboot over from Paramount... haha) Or maybe he had dirt on Zazlav? Or maybe they just saw a world in which Digger connects with the Zeitgeist in a big way...
Understood, I'm just including those as further knocks against the film.
The closest comp is "Birdman." The budget for that appears to be sub-$20M and it made $100M. So even *with* strong WOM, reviews, and marketing, "Digger" had almost no chance of earning a profit on its $150M+ budget.
There's just no justification for that kind of budget, especially in an environment where ancillary revenue (e.g. home video) has all-but dried up.
Also, I'm troubled but not surprised by the horrifically lazy grammar of these powerful, highly paid studio execs.
Yeah, yeah, we get it, you're too busy to write a clear email. Much easier to just yell at or fire the subordinate who doesn't understand what you meant.
Enlightening. Thank you. This makes me wonder if professional sports have similar metrics of putting certain athletes and coaches together on the same team.