Where Does the Money Come From?

[JoeD80]

This is the post I think:

WB can take 30% of all B5 income right off the top as "overhead," and subject the remaining 70% to their net formula, which is constructed such that if a set on a small movie burns down in Botswana, they can bill the costs against B5...so that the series will never, ever show a profit.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

I think JMS did a post about how studios use shows that are profitable to offset non-profitable losses so it balances and they don't have to pay royalties to the profitable shows. I'm sure Jan has that link somewhere

[FuryPilot]

CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN HOW WARNER, FOX, PARAMOUNT, UNIVERSAL, AND ALL OTHER COMPANIES ARE SO RICH TODAY? THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE.[/B]

Most of us gave up on that question a looong time ago.

FP

[Sidrack Marinho]

Everytime I hear this excuse for 90 shows being cancelled like "The Flash" I wonder why things like that didn't happen today when the companies are spending 200 million bucks to sell bad movies like Superman: Returns or 10 millions to produce a single LOST episode...

I mean, think about it. Take a look at the excuse bellow:

The widescreen conversion thing was executive short sightedness at it's finest!!! We offered to do ALL of Babylon 5 in widescreen mode if Warner Bros would buy us a reference monitor so we could check our output. (only $5000 at the time) Ken Parkes (the "Business affairs" guy) and Netter (penny wise, but pound foolish) said no! So we did everything so it could be CROPPED to be widescreen! Each blamed the other by the way. Doug Netter said, "Ken Parkes said no". Ken Parkes said, "Doug Netter said no". SHEESH!!! So for $75 an episode they could have had AWESOME near Hi-Def. Bet Joe never heard about that!!

Read the entire discussion here:

http://jmsnews.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3560

And still some crappy shows like Heroes are getting many seasons and some guys are complaining the Flash suits were 25K bucks...

"The Flash" had high production costs from the amazing special effects. They even hold up well today in the digital age! The cameras and optical filters to give the "Flash" his zoom and blurred speed trail, the expensive costumes for the characters, and the excessive amount of film for the super-speed effects all added up. At least the series was done exceptionally well if for only one year.

CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN HOW WARNER, FOX, PARAMOUNT, UNIVERSAL, AND ALL OTHER COMPANIES ARE SO RICH TODAY? THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE.