Understanding the Business of Entertainment

Chapter 10Distribution

Introduction

Film marketing and distribution is the process of generating revenues. Marketing creates and intensifies the public’s desire to see a production, and distribution makes it available to the public in movie theaters, on television, DVDs and internet sites, and in a variety of other media outlets.

As we’re about to discuss, movies cost a great deal of money to market and distribute these days (and, from this point on, I’ll collectively refer to marketing and distribution costs as simply “distribution costs” since industry professionals often use this shorthand). Therefore, when a movie studio considers whether or not to make a film, it must calculate whether the project’s production costs, plus its total distribution ...