Which directors give you more bang for the buck?
I get a ton of emails from people and outfits asking me to post things, but I have to confess I’ve never gotten anything like this: A web post about movies from a company called “Sofas and Sectionals.” What conceivable connection? I suppose they figure folks who enjoy movies, especially in their home theaters, will want to buy nice sofas???
Anyway the content is actually pretty intriguing. I can’t vouch for the veracity of their numbers, but the basic premise is if you take six notable directors — James Cameron, Michael Bay, George Lucas, M. Night Shyamalan, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorcese — who provides the best ROR (Rate of Return). Some surprising numbers:
* The movie with the highest number is American Graffiti with a budget of $775K and revenues of $250M for a whopping 32,158% ROR. You might have guessed that, but never in a million years #2 on the list: Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (Scorcese) with a budget of $85K and revenues of $19M for a huge 22,252% ROR.
* Worst ROR? That ‘honor’ would go to Shyamalan for his 1998 movie Wide Awake: $6M budget, $286K revenue for an ROR of -95%. Next is Scorcese with the 1982 movie The King of Comedy: $18M budget, $2.5M revenue, ROR: -85%.
* And what are the ROR numbers if you invested $1M in each director’s movies?
George Lucas: 2164%
Martin Scorcese: 1420%
Steven Spielberg: 1178%
James Cameron: 612%
M. Nigth Shyamalan: 422%
Michael Bay: 291%
For a list of the ROR on all their movies, go here.
If you had $1M and could invest in any director, which one would you choose?