FSF

I agree. Thieves will see comics sitting inside fancy schmancy looking CGC cases and just assume their worth stealing, whether we're talking about AF15 in NM or an Alpha Flight 90 in VF condition.

I have nothing to add other than that I love storage related topics in regards to collectibles. The thing with comic books is that they are so darn big (especially when slabbed) that it makes everything about them cumbersome (storage, transporting, shipping). And the cost of supplies (like the CGC frames or even mylars) can be quite expensive, relatively speaking. Baseball cards and coins are much easier to store and less costlier to do so. I wish there were some obvious answers but I have yet to come across any. I have one of those big boy (at least for my bank) safe deposit boxes and can't imagine being able to store more than 7-8 CGC comics yet I could easily store thousands of ounces of gold (hundreds of pounds worth) or hundreds of slabbed coins or slabbed baseball cards.

Awesome packaging and fast shipping. Great guy to do business with. Five Stars!!!

Let me break it down for you so it's very clear. We are talking about the possibility of studios green-lighting a project or not, in this case XYZ comic movie in the future. They do this by calculating the NPV ("net present value") of the given project. In that NPV calculation, the IRR is used as a calculating ("discounting") factor to determine what the NPV is. If that NPV is below negative, "No money for you [comic book movie]!!!". If it is a positive figure, then it will possibly get green-lit. The final decision is based on a whole host of factors such as how confident they are in the accuracy of the NPV analysis, what other competing positive NPV projects are in the pipeline, how much cash they have, how much access to debt or equity capital they have and various other considerations. But in judging the "go-no go" decision of the prospective movie, that IRR will be used so we can't just ignore it because it isn't a cash outlay when it very much factors into the decision of whether the company will proceed or not with the project (which is what we have been discussing here). As for taxes, sure why would an investor care about the ultimate net returns. The actual amount that a company makes after ALL expenses? Yeah, whatever. As for big gross movies losing money, take a look at the link I provided. It has an example that appears to have been prepared by a studio.

The"lease" agreement betwen the studio or distributor and the theaters is not a standard "lease" as most of us think of it. It is a variable contingent one in which a certain percent of the gross ticket sales get remitted. The first week is usually like 80 percent to the studios, the second week like 60 percent and on and on until the theater keeps the majority with each passing week. That's for domestic sales. International usually works thru distribution through each country but the end result is about 40 percent of the take. The overall point is that a movie that may take in $600 to 700 million is teetering pretty close to break even more than one would think depending on how much the production and marketing budgets are, which appear to be exceeding $300 million regularly.

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying but I was not implying that the studios pay the movie theaters. While it may have been expressed better, the implication is that the theaters get the money and have to remit a certain percentage to the studios. How much that is varies but usually, the studios get 50-60% for the domestic gross and around 40% for foreign, or roughly half the world wide gross, usually a little less than that, especially with foreign sales becoming a bigger and bigger piece of the pie. But what I really don't understand is your comment, "only the theater has the chance of losing money. The worst that can happen to the production company is that they don't make any money on their investment." If a studio puts up $200M to produce a film, plus another $150M to market and promote that film, that is $350M they have to recoup. That's before the time value of money is even considered, which is where the IRR comes into play but lets keep it simple. If the film grosses $500M (which sound like a lot and as you suggest goes to the theaters first, the studio ultimately gets about $250M of that $500M gross). Hence, the studio would lose $100M. So how is it that the studio can't lose money? All of this is even before the allocation of overhead, which has to be considered in any NPV analysis of a movie project. And then there are costs for developing movies that get scrapped before ever being made or issued, which has to be recouped as well though we could just consider that as another component of overhead.

I realize that IRR isn't a cash out but any project has to meet that thresshold as a return to achieve. However, in a lot of cases, there are debt leveraged companies that actually pay interest to fund projects so it would be a cash out of some amount. And no one suggested that Marvel movies haven't been wildly successful. We all know they have. This is about what the future may bring and the bar is higher and higher to make an impact. The passage you quote doesn't at all detail exactly how those numbers are derived so we can't know for sure what costs have or haven't been included, though I assume there were plenty of profits to be made which I never stated otherwise. Would it really shock anyone if the budget for the next one or a final third or whatever winds up with a budget of $250M and more s&m and grosses only $600M (an impressive revenue number to the vast majority of lay people going to these movies), but one which will ultimate result in millions in losses? I mentioned taxes because the net profit number is what ultimately is made. Companies don't keep taxes so one always has to look at the BOTTOM line and know exactly what is in it for them. As for EBITDA, that is a Wall Street concoction to peddle overvalued equities in an effort to pretend that companies are making more than they actually are. If EBITDA is what's so important, why does the SEC require income statements to be submitted on a net income basis???

There are a million links out there for those who care. I spent a quite a bit of time a couple of years back researching movie profitability. It is difficult to get exact answers because the studios do not share this kind of information in detail. Here is an article that gives a good primer on movie costs and all that's involved and you can see the 2x there. http://io9.gizmodo.com/5747305/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need-to-make-to-be-profitable Dr. Strange had a reported $165M dollar budget. On top of which they had to have spent probably at least $100M or so, if not more on advertising and promotion. Then there is the required internal rate to consider which for a company like Disney is probably about 12%. So you'd have to increase the costs by 12% for each year that goes by before money is recouped. The mid point of that spend is about 18 months. So that's $300M+ to recoup. In Dr. Strange's case, it may have made up to about $100M before taxes. But there are some other costs (some direct and some allocated) that will reduce that number. Then of course, there is some extra backend with video and all but that's relative chump change. This is how the movie industry works. That's why the industry said if Star Wars VII didn't get $1 billion in gross, it would have to be considered a flop.

Revenues aren't profits. As I stated, these movies are very expensive to make. And it's not like the theaters air them for free just to give all the money to the studios. That's why a common breakeven point is usually 2-3x the total costs, though it tilts closer to 2x for these types of movies. Your comments aren't determining anything regarding being astronomical, you're just speculating. There's no question that a lot of comic movies have grossed a lot. But one, they cost A LOT to make and market. And two, there are tons of other movies, like Star Wars and all of their animation movies, that are part of Disney. And quite frankly, I would bank on the longevity of Star Wars and eternally timeless princess type movies than what are basically a fad whose tenure of popularity is much more suspect. Here is the revenue list for their top movies of all time: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/chart/?studio=buenavista.htm&view=parent While there are a lot of comic movies at the top, there are tons of IP assets they have that AREN'T comic related. Only one comic movie in the Top 5, albeit there are 5 of the top 10. But then it thins out quite a bit after that. There's only so much saturation that can occur before these movie start to cannibalize each other, even if it were to remain as popular as it is today. And while this is personally anecdotal, I've watched virtually all of the comic movies and can scarcely remember the plot to any of them (even quite a few that I saw twice). I recall with good clarity Finding Nemo (which I only saw once well over 10 years ago) or Frozen (which I didn't even like). The comic movies are a collage of a mess to a large extent. I can easily see a day where the entire genre dies overnight, just like disco did.

Gosh, what a nightmare for those in the path. At best, it is a MAJOR inconvenience and of course it can be much more dire than that. Hopefully it will let up a good deal or change course prior to landfall.

Dilly! Dilly!

We don't know how astronomical any of it has been. 15% is a lot but you make it sound like it's predominantly comic movies and Star Wars. They also do a LOT of animation movies as well as every other kind. What we do know is that it take $300-$400 million to make one these movies and market them. Which means that it takes about $700 million plus to break even. It's a risky proposition. Fox may be rebooting FF but only because they see that comic movies are lucrative and the Jessica Alba franchise didn't do THAT bad as I recall. If the comic movie scene proves itself to be less profitable or not at all, then you would see FOX throwing the FF on the shelf perhaps never again to be seen in our lifetimes. One thing you can count on with human beings is that they have a STRONG tendency to believe that the way it is now, is what will always be. And virtually in every case, that has proven to be folly. It's like the mentality that Hulk 181 has gone up exponentially so that must continue right? I'm not in that camp. I can see a day when increases are rather tepid. In fact, I expect the next recession with a few years to prove out that point. We've already seen virtually all non-keys from SA to modern become substantially less. And these books contain all of these super popular characters.

Their top money maker are the tv channel properties. Resorts are second by a good margin. I agree that they'll try to leverage whatever assets they have but if we see a string of failures, I think they'll be fully prepared to pull the plug as will every other studio. It's just a matter of time. Just think abou the history of Hollywood. It is completely filled with eras of a dominant genre. There were westerns for many years. Musicals use to dominate. Sensivite dramas had their days in the late 70s and 80s. The ONLY thing you can count on is that nothing lasts. Not even something many people thought so foundational as rock n roll music. The only theme that is eternal in movies are some form of cops and robbers theme which encompasses spy thrillers like James Bond.

Their valuable IP as far as I'm concerned is the Star Wars franchise, which is an entirely different thing from comics IMO and in the minds of many. The entire studio division brings in less than I think 15% of their profits. A huge chunk of that must be Star Wars. I'm sure they'll milk Star Wars for all that its worth but I'm not sure what other IP needs protecting that has meaningful impact on their profits apart from a short term blip here and there.

I agree that eventually the comic-movie craze will die out and very likely within 10 years. Some limited amount may live on sporadically (Superman, Batman, Spiderman) but the rest of it will fade away as I expect rap music will someday as well as the Kardashians. Nothing "in style" ever lasts and I can't see Hollywood becoming a permanent comic movie making town. I'm guessing the actors and directors would pretty much all welcome the change, apart from the huge money of course. As for Disney, they make very little of their money on their studios so they aren't really dependent on keeping the comic theme alive just to survive. They make the lion's share of their money from their TV channel properties that they own and their resorts.

I agree with everything you say.

It sounds like the title should read: "Recommendations for the serious comic [reader]" Also, that would be very difficult to answer considering everyone has such varying tastes. It would be much more analytical and objective to discuss what is the best investment. If you're looking for titles to read, I think you should at least throw out something about yourself and/or the comic titles that you enjoy that you have already read.

Spider-Man and Batman 9.8 -- $50 I'll Take it!

Understood. Does anyone know of a CGC box option that holds like 3-5 holders snuggly in a small closeable box. I'm not really interested in the CGC 35 slab holder boxes.

What do you folks think of storing your collection in these types of boxes as opposed to the traditional long/short boxes? I like the idea of batching books in smaller quantities, if and when I ever get a collection going. Since some dealers ship books like this, I imagine they're generally safe as long as as the books have backing boards and you don't throw the boxes around haphazardly. https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-273/Literature-Mailers/11-1-8-x-8-3-4-x-2-White-Literature-Mailers?pricode=WB0385&gadtype=pla&id=S-273&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt5fqm-T71QIVTpR-Ch051QC8EAQYASABEgLGLvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds