10 Craziest Cinema Demands Made By Hollywood
9. Godzilla Demands a Monster Revenue Share
The reason you pay so much money for your popcorn, sweets and fizzy drink is because that's how cinemas make their money. Every film screened is essentially a rental, and venues have to pay a ticket split with the studios.
Generally, this is 60% to the studio and 40% to the cinema.
This 40% generally covers the running of the place, but it's in popcorn where the real profits are. So the next time you're ranting and raving at some poor kid on minimum wage about the price of a hotdog, remember that it's not their fault, it's Hollywood's.
Case in point: Sony's revenue share deal for their 1998 Westernised reboot of Godzilla.
Breaking with the traditional 60/40 split, the studio instead requested a whopping 80/20 split and, in some cases, 90/10. Such a huge hike made the trade papers and infuriated cinema managers, who were soon feeling the pressure to make up the difference with concession items.
Sony's extraordinarily high revenue share deal might have been due to the studio seeing the writing on the wall and attempting to recoup as much money as possible, as Godzilla would end up as critical and commercial flop.