INTRO ----- There's this weird thing in the movie business: Almost all movies lose money. Except they don't, really. [...] The movie grossed $240 million at the box office. And, after you take out all the costs and fees and everything associated with the movie, it lost $212 million. This is the part of Hollywood accounting that is, essentially, fiction. Disney, which produced the movie, did not lose that money. Each movie is set up as its own corporation. So what "lost money" on the picture is that corporation — Gone In 60 Seconds, Inc., or whatever it was called. And Gone In 60 Seconds, Inc. pays all these fees to Disney and everyone else connected to the movie. And the fees, Epstein says, are really where the money's at. This system is partly a historical accident. But, Epstein says, all the accounting tricks can also help protect the egos of Hollywood's finest: They allow actors to say they're landing huge contracts to make movies, even when the actors may never see most of that money. - from: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2010/05/the_friday_podcast_angelina_sh.html THE POTTER INCOME STATEMENT --------------------------- In that statement, you'll notice the "distribution fee" of $212 million dollars. That's basically Warner Bros. paying itself to make sure the movie "loses money." There are some other fun tidbits in there as well. The $130 million in "advertising and publicity"? Again, much of that is actually Warner Bros. paying itself (or paying its own "properties"). $57 million in "interest"? Also to itself for "financing" the film. Even if we assume that only half of the "advertising and publicity" money is Warner Bros. paying itself, we're still talking about $350 million that Warner Bros. shifts around, which gets taken out of the "bottom line" in the movie accounting. - from https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100708/02510310122.shtml