How long til VEI gets 5% market share?

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

So that's $25,000 USD to produce and print one 32 page comic, multiplied by 8 (an ideal number for a full VALIANT line of comics) brings the total to $200,000.

Plus rent, plus utilities, plus administrative, plus janitorial, plus gas, plus vehicles, plus registration, plus entertainment, plus payroll taxes, plus sales tax, plus advertising, plus pensions, plus IRAs, plus matching FICA, plus.......

[slym2none]

Um, btw, Magnus is stronger than the Hulk...

He can press over 100 tons??? Wow... I had no idea.





-slym

[depluto]

So that's $25,000 USD to produce and print one 32 page comic, multiplied by 8 (an ideal number for a full VALIANT line of comics) brings the total to $200,000.

Plus rent, plus utilities, plus administrative, plus janitorial, plus gas, plus vehicles, plus registration, plus entertainment, plus payroll taxes, plus sales tax, plus advertising, plus pensions, plus IRAs, plus matching FICA, plus.......

Ladies and gentlemen, ZWH is in the house.

[slym2none]

Seriously, I read this topic's title and thought "Did I miss something?" I thought maybe DNV made some announcement in the past day that I missed, and was printing books.....





-slym ( )

[leonmallett]

Aren't we all ever hopeful Slym?

It would be good to hear something solid though.


In reponse to Brian, I think the 5% market share will happen or it won't. What I mean by that is that I imagine (if successful) market share for a new VALIANT will stabilise fairly quickly, so I would say less than the 38 months you figure at. I'd say closer to 18-24 months to achieve optimum market share, whatever the optimum for a new VALIANT is (3%, 5%, 7%, whatever). The market can't be forced, demand will dictate share.

[ManofTheAtom]

The money involved was substantial, particularly involving the Spider-Man movie. Marvel eventually collected more than $50 million in profits from “Spider-Man” earnings.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6843800/

[BrianT]

Yes, that was my point: Acclaim's share rose for the first 9 months because they were publishing something that EVERYONE already knew about GOING IN...however, when everyone discovered that it was same crap, different name, they dropped it just as quickly.

It's an anomaly in the comics publishing world, and not likely to ever happen again.

My point was that it's possible because it happened, for whatever reason it happened. Plain and simple. No further analysis needed. Whether it will actually happen again is irrelevant.

"Bought the rights" is easier to understand by the common folk than "obtained the license", and it's not about that in any event.

Yes, they BOUGHT the ability to publish Western's characters; while Western continued to hold the copyright on the names and likenesses of said characters, they allowed someone else to create new works of art using those names and likenesses for either a flat fee upfront or a percent of whatever they negotiated (and I'm fairly certain it was a standard licensing contract whereby they paid a certain amount for the use of the characters AND paid a percentage of any profits obtained as well.)

True, "bought the rights" is easier to understand, the only problem with that though is that it has a different implication than "obtained the license", so one shouldn't use the two as if they were interchangeable. That's what makes it confusing to "the common folk."

[BrianT]

The money involved was substantial, particularly involving the Spider-Man movie. Marvel eventually collected more than $50 million in profits from “Spider-Man” earnings.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6843800/

"Spider-Man" earnings is an undefined term there. It could include the movie, plus related merchandise such as games, toys and books. I think the Spider-Man option was something like $3-5 million. Marvel getting so little of the film profits is why they went to producing their own movies.

You can't compare Magnus, Robot Fighter to Spider-Man, frankly, you shouldn't even be comparing Magnus to the Hulk.

[ManofTheAtom]

If Tank Girl and Ghost World can be made into movies, then why not Magnus or X-O Manowar?

What makes Tank Girl or Ghost World better candidates to be turned into movies over Magnus and X-O Manowar?

Because people don't know what VALIANT is?

I don't even know who published Tank Girl or Ghost World, yet those movies exist.

[BrianT]

If Tank Girl and Ghost World can be made into movies, then why not Magnus or X-O Manowar?

What makes Tank Girl or Ghost World better candidates to be turned into movies over Magnus and X-O Manowar?

Because people don't know what VALIANT is?

I don't even know who published Tank Girl or Ghost World, yet those movies exist.

You miss the point completely. It's not that Magnus couldn't be made into a movie or TV show or whatever, it's that if it were, it would never command the kind of money Spider-Man did. The creator of Tank Girl didn't make 10 million dollars off that movie, he/she didn't make 3-5 like Marvel did on Spider-Man. And I'd put up money to say he/she didn't even get a million dollars. I'd be willing to bet that the creator of Men in Black didn't get a million dollars for the first movie. My point is that Magnus is more in the league of Tank Girl, then it is of Spider-Man. To think VEI could make 10mil off a Magnus movie is very far from reality.

[BrianT]

Seriously, I read this topic's title and thought "Did I miss something?" I thought maybe DNV made some announcement in the past day that I missed, and was printing books.....





-slym ( )

Nope. Just trying to have a little fun while we wait.

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

The money involved was substantial, particularly involving the Spider-Man movie. Marvel eventually collected more than $50 million in profits from “Spider-Man” earnings.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6843800/

Let's then consider WORLDWIDE grosses, and revise.

$800 million+ worldwide.

Marvel, ACCORDING TO AN UNDOCUMENTED SOURCE which GUESSED (in this case, MSNBC and AP), got "more than $50 million."

That's 6.25% of Box Office receipts.

I already TOLD you that Marvel knew what it had GOING IN to negotiations with Sony. And, on top of that, the film MADE a profit for Sony. Had it NOT made a profit, Marvel would have seen ZILCH.

Spiderman has consistently been ranked, in poll after poll, the #3 most popular superhero IN THE WORLD, behind Supes and Bats.

So.

If the #3 most popular superhero in the WORLD only makes 6.25% of total box office receipts (if you believe the undocumented guess), then why on EARTH do you think a totally unknown property, with box office receipts of only $100 million (another total supposition), would make 10% of said receipts?

All it takes is one FLOP to sink the company.

Sorry, MOTA, and no offense....but you just don't have a clue how the film industry works.

<shrug>

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

Yes, that was my point: Acclaim's share rose for the first 9 months because they were publishing something that EVERYONE already knew about GOING IN...however, when everyone discovered that it was same crap, different name, they dropped it just as quickly.

It's an anomaly in the comics publishing world, and not likely to ever happen again.

My point was that it's possible because it happened, for whatever reason it happened. Plain and simple. No further analysis needed. Whether it will actually happen again is irrelevant.

No, that's not what your point was. Your point was "well, look, what happened with ACCLAIM was such and so, so it's POSSIBLE that it could happen again" WITHIN THE CONTEXT of a discussion on how long, if ever, it will take VEI to obtain 5% market share.

YOU presented it as relevant to the conversation. Now you're changing your story?

That's like discussing the merits and disadvantages of a large meteor smashing into the earth like the one that plowed into the Yucatan 65 million years ago and wiped out all the dinosaurs (or so the theory goes.)

Hey, it happened once, it could happen again, right?

But when a situation occurs with so little frequency as to make the odds of it occuring again statistically negligible, then you're just talking about hypotheticals, not real world situations.

And what's the point in talking about hypotheticals?

When you posted this thread, you DID NOT make it clear that you were only considering hypotheticals...in fact, quite the opposite. The fact is, YOU were the one who MADE Acclaim's very short rise and fall relevant by commenting on the data that MOTA posted and presenting it as a
"see, it happened once, it could happen again" analysis...

And now you're saying your own comments are irrelevant, just because someone came along and said "um...no, the market situation at that time was totally unique to that company, and never likely to happen again"....?

Huh?

"Bought the rights" is easier to understand by the common folk than "obtained the license", and it's not about that in any event.

Yes, they BOUGHT the ability to publish Western's characters; while Western continued to hold the copyright on the names and likenesses of said characters, they allowed someone else to create new works of art using those names and likenesses for either a flat fee upfront or a percent of whatever they negotiated (and I'm fairly certain it was a standard licensing contract whereby they paid a certain amount for the use of the characters AND paid a percentage of any profits obtained as well.)

True, "bought the rights" is easier to understand, the only problem with that though is that it has a different implication than "obtained the license", so one shouldn't use the two as if they were interchangeable. That's what makes it confusing to "the common folk."

No, your statement is not correct.

If I say I "bought the rights" to something, people generally know what that means, without necessitating further explanation. When you say "obtained the license", it's not AS clear, and requires further explanation. People know what "rights" means; but "license" has a much broader range of definitions, and thus has to be explained.

The two are not ENTIRELY interchangeable, but for the sake of THIS discussion, the statement was perfectly adequate. If I had known we were going to get technical about irrelevancies, I would have made it abundantly clear in the simplest of terms. However, I generally don't imagine we're going to discuss the minutiae of legal terms that aren't relevant to the topic at hand, so I didn't think it necessary.

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

The money involved was substantial, particularly involving the Spider-Man movie. Marvel eventually collected more than $50 million in profits from “Spider-Man” earnings.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6843800/

"Spider-Man" earnings is an undefined term there. It could include the movie, plus related merchandise such as games, toys and books. I think the Spider-Man option was something like $3-5 million. Marvel getting so little of the film profits is why they went to producing their own movies.

You can't compare Magnus, Robot Fighter to Spider-Man, frankly, you shouldn't even be comparing Magnus to the Hulk.

Exactly.

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

If Tank Girl and Ghost World can be made into movies, then why not Magnus or X-O Manowar?

What makes Tank Girl or Ghost World better candidates to be turned into movies over Magnus and X-O Manowar?

Because people don't know what VALIANT is?

I don't even know who published Tank Girl or Ghost World, yet those movies exist.

Fact: no one is saying that an X-O Manowar film CANNOT be made, so let's drop THAT argument right now.

Fact: Tank girl cost $25 million to MAKE (not including advertising), and had a domestic box office GROSS of $4,064,495.

Do you have any idea how much money MGM LOST in producing that film? (Hint...it's NOT $25 million minus $4 million and change.) Do you think the creators of Tank Girl, Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin, or TG's US publisher Dark Horse saw a DIME out of that disaster? Of COURSE not...but do you think they lost everything they had? Of COURSE not....that's WHY studios exist: to take risks that private individuals, or even comic publishers CANNOT. Oh, sure, MGM may have paid Dark Horse and/or Hewlett and Martin for the OPTION of using Tank Girl....but it was certainly on the SOUTH side of $1 million (and likely in the neighborhood of $250,000-$500,000, with points out the back end if the film made a profit.)

(source: BoxOfficeMojo.com)


Fact: Ghost World cost $7 million to MAKE (not including advertising), and had a worldwide box office GROSS of $8,761,393.

AGAIN...a DISASTER for MGM, and it even got an Academy Award nom!

(source: BoxOfficeMojo.com)



So. The odds that an X-O Manowar film could get MADE?

Not TOO bad, depending on your salesmen.

The odds that such a film will gross $100 million?

NOT GOOD.

The odds that such a film will gross $100 million, and the publisher will see $10 million of that?

Non-existant in this reality.

So, all your analysis on how a publisher could SPEND that money is specious, because it WILL NEVER EVER HAPPEN.

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

If Tank Girl and Ghost World can be made into movies, then why not Magnus or X-O Manowar?

What makes Tank Girl or Ghost World better candidates to be turned into movies over Magnus and X-O Manowar?

Because people don't know what VALIANT is?

I don't even know who published Tank Girl or Ghost World, yet those movies exist.

You miss the point completely. It's not that Magnus couldn't be made into a movie or TV show or whatever, it's that if it were, it would never command the kind of money Spider-Man did. The creator of Tank Girl didn't make 10 million dollars off that movie, he/she didn't make 3-5 like Marvel did on Spider-Man. And I'd put up money to say he/she didn't even get a million dollars. I'd be willing to bet that the creator of Men in Black didn't get a million dollars for the first movie.

CERTAINLY not for the option, but depending on how good his agent was, he probably did well out the back end. No one gives away these kinds of things anymore without SOME kind of back end points.

My point is that Magnus is more in the league of Tank Girl, then it is of Spider-Man. To think VEI could make 10mil off a Magnus movie is very far from reality.

VERY far. So far as to be complete fiction.

[BrianT]

No, that's not what your point was. Your point was "well, look, what happened with ACCLAIM was such and so, so it's POSSIBLE that it could happen again" WITHIN THE CONTEXT of a discussion on how long, if ever, it will take VEI to obtain 5% market share.

YOU presented it as relevant to the conversation. Now you're changing your story?

That's like discussing the merits and disadvantages of a large meteor smashing into the earth like the one that plowed into the Yucatan 65 million years ago and wiped out all the dinosaurs (or so the theory goes.)

Hey, it happened once, it could happen again, right?

But when a situation occurs with so little frequency as to make the odds of it occuring again statistically negligible, then you're just talking about hypotheticals, not real world situations.

And what's the point in talking about hypotheticals?

When you posted this thread, you DID NOT make it clear that you were only considering hypotheticals...in fact, quite the opposite. The fact is, YOU were the one who MADE Acclaim's very short rise and fall relevant by commenting on the data that MOTA posted and presenting it as a
"see, it happened once, it could happen again" analysis...

And now you're saying your own comments are irrelevant, just because someone came along and said "um...no, the market situation at that time was totally unique to that company, and never likely to happen again"....?

Huh?

I was responding to the info posted by MOTA here because this is where it was posted. I had never seen it before and that was my reaction to it. I'm not going to go make another thread to comment on something said here. How relevant is the discussion of what the U.S. has taken from Britain to the topic of this discussion? It's not, yet it still happened in this thread. For my point to have been what you claim it to be would contradict my initial post, since I was predicting a slow climb that would eventually get to 5%, not a quick rise and fall.

If my point was really what you claim it to be, I'd be arguing that you're wrong and that the Acclaim situation could happen again. And possibly already has with properties like Transformers from Dreamwave. The same situation could theorectically happen with VEI, a strong bit of optimism for the revival of the line (nostagia is big these days) could give it an initial steady climb, but if the quality isn't there it could drop back down very quickly, just as it did for Acclaim.

Oh and I believe there's been some talk of a meteor in danger of hitting the Earth in the next 16 years or so. I may have the time frame off by a few decades, but it's close enough that NASA is considering ways to combat the situation.

No, your statement is not correct.

If I say I "bought the rights" to something, people generally know what that means, without necessitating further explanation. When you say "obtained the license", it's not AS clear, and requires further explanation. People know what "rights" means; but "license" has a much broader range of definitions, and thus has to be explained.

The two are not ENTIRELY interchangeable, but for the sake of THIS discussion, the statement was perfectly adequate. If I had known we were going to get technical about irrelevancies, I would have made it abundantly clear in the simplest of terms. However, I generally don't imagine we're going to discuss the minutiae of legal terms that aren't relevant to the topic at hand, so I didn't think it necessary.

Yes "bought the rights" is easier to understand, it means "ownership of the property." "Obtain the license" may be a little harder to understand, but it translates into "permission to use the property for a purpose in exchange for a fee." "Bought the rights" is an easier concept to understand, but it means something different than "obtain the license" so it should not be used in its place. VEI bought the rights to the Valiant properties; Valiant obtained a license to use the Gold Key characters from Classic Media.

There's a great deal of confusion amongst a lot of the people here regarding what exactly is going on with the Valiant intellectual property, as is evidenced by the Trademark Status thread I started (they don't know what "rights" means and they don't know what "marks" means), so I sought to make a simple clarification in order to prevent further confusion. You took objection to being corrected and made it into this whole thing.

I was just trying to have some light hearted fun with this thread, a chance for us all to show our optimism towards a Valiant revival, I'm not trying to get caught up in all this technical *SQUEE*. Just relax and have fun with it.

[BrianT]

Fact: Tank girl cost $25 million to MAKE (not including advertising), and had a domestic box office GROSS of $4,064,495.

Tank Girl cost 25 mil to make?! Good lord.

[ZephyrWasHOT!!]

I was responding to the info posted by MOTA here because this is where it was posted. I had never seen it before and that was my reaction to it. I'm not going to go make another thread to comment on something said here.

Yeah, the point here is that it WAS completely relevant to the specific topic at hand, and you're trying to claim it wasn't. It clearly was, and yet, you are now trying to say it wasn't because someone pointed out that that was a unique case in relation to the ORIGINAL POINT.

How relevant is the discussion of what the U.S. has taken from Britain to the topic of this discussion? It's not, yet it still happened in this thread.

Not at all....but then, its relevance (or rather, lack thereof) IS NOT IN DEBATE.

For my point to have been what you claim it to be would contradict my initial post, since I was predicting a slow climb that would eventually get to 5%, not a quick rise and fall.

Um. No. You're clearly not understanding. Let me try again: the rise and fall of Acclaim's market share is GENERALLY related to the TOPIC of OTHER COMPANIES' market share, which is where your OP comes in (the market share of VEI, and

The "contradicting your original post" comment came about because you said the commentary on Acclaim's rise and fall was NOT relevant to the topic at hand, that is, how long before VEI would achieve 5% market share, when, in fact, DISCUSSING ANYONE'S MARKET SHARE WOULD BE RELEVANT TO THE ORIGINAL TOPIC, DESPITE your claim that it is NOT.

I NEVER said that you were SPECIFICALLY contradicting the STATEMENTS in your OP.

In other words: calling the discussion of Acclaim's market share irrelevant is a contradiction of the THEME of the thread (market share) and not the SPECIFIC STATEMENTS of the original post.

OY.

If my point was really what you claim it to be, I'd be arguing that you're wrong and that the Acclaim situation could happen again. And possibly already has with properties like Transformers from Dreamwave. The same situation could theorectically happen with VEI, a strong bit of optimism for the revival of the line (nostagia is big these days) could give it an initial steady climb, but if the quality isn't there it could drop back down very quickly, just as it did for Acclaim.

Ugh.

Your point was that discussing Acclaim's market share as related to the theme of the thread was irrelevant. I dispute that, and provided much information to support that dispute. Period.

And again....it will not happen again, because the conditions don't exist for it to happen again. When those conditions are in place, THEN I will say that it could happen again.

But again...this is all irrelevant anyways, right....?

Oh and I believe there's been some talk of a meteor in danger of hitting the Earth in the next 16 years or so. I may have the time frame off by a few decades, but it's close enough that NASA is considering ways to combat the situation.

Yeah, you let me know when that happens, k?

You're still missing the point.

(point: if it happened now, 16 years from now, or 65 million years from now is all irrelevant...the fact is, it HAS NOT happened in 65 million years ALREADY. That MAKES its occurence so infrequent as to render the ODDS of it happening IN THE CONTEXT OF HUMAN EXISTENCE statistically negligible.)

Yes "bought the rights" is easier to understand, it means "ownership of the property." "Obtain the license" may be a little harder to understand, but it translates into "permission to use the property for a purpose in exchange for a fee." "Bought the rights" is an easier concept to understand, but it means something different than "obtain the license" so it should not be used in its place.

In the casual context of the conversation, I'm afraid I'll have to vehemently disagree. When we get into a discussion of legal minutiae, then I'll concede you have a point. Until then, it was appropriate in the context of THIS thread.

VEI bought the rights to the VALIANT properties; VALIANT obtained a license to use the Gold Key characters from Classic Media.

There's a great deal of confusion amongst a lot of the people here regarding what exactly is going on with the VALIANT intellectual property, as is evidenced by the Trademark Status thread I started (they don't know what "rights" means and they don't know what "marks" means), so I sought to make a simple clarification in order to prevent further confusion.

A clarification that wasn't necessary in the context of this thread. The "great deal of confusion" doesn't really matter, unless said people wish to involve themselves financially in the company (or even have the opportunity to), or just have a general desire to learn about it, so why does it...*truly*...matter?

I'm sure we could both go on at length about the differences between trademarks, registered trademarks, servicemarks, copyrights, licensing, fair use, and so on, but does anyone outside of the business world REALLY need to know that?

Bottom line: I SERIOUSLY doubt ANY confusion was created in ANY way by my casual reference to the "rights" (vs "license") comment.

CLEARLY it is an issue with YOU, so, in future discussions, I will endeavor to make myself as absolutely crystal clear to you as I possibly can.

You took objection to being corrected and made it into this whole thing.

Nah, I took exception to you making an issue where there was none. I have no problem being corrected, when it's accurate. Yours was not.

I was just trying to have some light hearted fun with this thread, a chance for us all to show our optimism towards a VALIANT revival, I'm not trying to get caught up in all this technical *SQUEE*. Just relax and have fun with it.

Then why did you feel it necessary to "correct" the TRULY irrelevant point regarding "rights" vs. "license", and why were you the first one to get caught up in the technical *SQUEE*?

Your words don't match your actions.

Seriously, I dunno if anyone's filled you in, but you're not gonna win, here. The BEST you can hope for is a stalemate, and that's after it gets reallllly long, tedious, drawn out, and boring.

If I were you, I'd quit now before I get REALLY excited about all this typing......

[Rufusharley]

ugh... my head hurts...

[BrianT]

ugh... my head hurts...

Yours and mine both. I'm done banging my head against that wall.

So, anyway, I'm saying 38 months. Anybody else have a guess?

Here's a little more info on recent market shares, courtesy Newsarama:

March 2003

1) Marvel – 39.05%
2) DC – 30.90%
3) Image – 8.98%
4) CrossGen – 4.85%
5) Dark Horse – 3.22%


October 2006

MARVEL COMICS
42.70%

DC COMICS
37.28%

IMAGE COMICS
3.50%

DARK HORSE COMICS
2.72%

TOKYOPOP
0.90%

DYNAMIC FORCES
2.36%

IDW PUBLISHING
1.49%

WIZARD ENTERTAINMENT
1.15%

VIZ MEDIA
0.75%

DEVILS DUE PUBLISHING
0.66%

[BrianT]

And another HUGE wrench in MOTA's analysis of a Magnus movie that I don't think I or ZWH! mentioned is the simple fact that VEI doesn't own Magnus! If Magnus is optioned the vast majority of that money is going to Random House. If X-O Manowar was optioned, then that money'd go to VEI, but it would realistically be for hundreds of thousands of dollars (plus back end), not millions of dollars as was mentioned earlier.

[ManofTheAtom]

I have your wrench right here, heh.

A movie can make millions if there's an audience for it, if there's enough product based on it, and if the contracts are done right.

Plus, most money today tends to come from the movie AND the soundtrack.

Let me put it like this:

A few years ago I signed a contract with Platinum Studios that said that the biggest piece of royalties I would ever see on my property would be like 40% off whatever Platinum would get from the soundtrack.

That 40% was the highest % of royalty of anything else in the contract as far an ancilery product was concerned.

As owner of the property, I would have stand to make 85,000 USD if they made a movie out of it if the budget fell anywhere between 20 and 40 million dollars, and 125,000 if the budget was 90 million or more.

And that was bonus money for me just as the writer, it didn't include any other %.

Imagine how much money VEI could get out of a movie deal.

[BrianT]

I hope you can throw far.

[ManofTheAtom]

I hope you can throw far.

Lol