he's not an accountant, and odds are he either misunderstood what his accountant meant, or his accountant isn't explaining the full picture. it is quite possible that Queen did not 'earn' a penny - as it all depends on how the profits are divvied up when the contract was signed. he sort of gave it away, they didn't expect it would do this well - they likely expected to maybe break even which for a queen biopic is more than you can expect. as such, they likely negotiated to be paid a flat fee - ie. a salary- rather than a % of profits. To further elaborate, if they did not expect the film to earn high profits, it would be stupid to choose to be paid a percentage of profits instead of a salary. The biggest winner in this case was likely the producer & movie studio.
However, they likely did earn quite a bit indirectly as a result of its massive success. For every Queen fan that died between the 70s and today, they likely earned a net gain solely from this movie, given its wide exposure. Royalties, royalties, royalties, some merch, and of course royalties. i would not be surprised if these last couple of years (2018-2019) earned them the highest (annual) royalty revenues in their history. At least, the highest since Freddie died most likely.
"...we still haven’t earned a penny..."
Hollywood accounting is notorious for being "creative" and it does not surprise me that money isn't getting to them straight away. People in the business actually figure in the cost of litigation when budgeting. They know that they have to fight for the money.
I bet he's not taking into account the music royalties from the songs in the film, even if he doesn't get anything for the movie itself the music alone should boost all 4 of their bank accounts.
emrabt wrote:
I bet he's not taking into account the music royalties from the songs in the film, even if he doesn't get anything for the movie itself the music alone should boost all 4 of their bank accounts.
Correct - especially considering they have their own publishing, unlike most artists who have ever signed a major label deal.
But it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Brian was right about the Hollywood middlemen.
Brian's actually telling the truth.
The band is going to get very little of the movie's profits seeing as they aren't producers on the film. Jim Beach is going to get a nice chunk, though.
Elton John is no dummy, though. He is actually a producer on Rocketman.
P.S.-Brian and Roger being the music producers" on the film still does not amount to much.
I would imagine it's not trivial to Brian and Roger and they must be kicking themselves for not getting a better deal. The film literally made hundreds of millions in profits and Brian, Roger, Mary and John won't see any of it...but Jim Beach will!
LOL
I always thought Robert De Niro and Tribeca was going to have something to do with the Bohemian Rhapsody movie or maybe i'm wrong..
I cant imagine for a moment Brian and Roger Queen Productions are not making a penny from this movie in some way or another.
@flash
They are making money from soundtrack album sales only. No money from the film itself. They, and Queen Productions, have no financial stake in the film.
They probably thought the film would do well enough to just break even and serve as an advertisement for Queen's music. No one thought this would make anywhere NEAR 900 million dollars...so...there a a lot of people making a lot of money off of it but not any of the members of Queen.
They shouldn’t whine...the film was free advertisement which made the sales of Queen records rise again.
By the way, a multi millionaire crying because he doesn’t earn from the film is pretty pathetic
@King of All Queen Fans...so if you were responsible for creating the basis of the movie that made over 900 million dollars you'd be cool with other people taking the profits and receiving nothing?