I've been looking at a lot of box office numbers the last few days and pretty much 90% of movies both tentpoles and none tentpoles only make double of their budget, no more, according to people in here and others, that is not enough to make a profit, so what movie is making a profit? BvS tripled its budget but its still a dud?? doesn't make sense to me.

It's not impossible for films to make a profit, they still get to add on revenue from home disk sales and merchandising after the fact, but that doesn't change the fact that the benchmark for how a film does it it's gross box office take and if that's low, it's the first indication of a basic failure. (as again, they don't get 100% of disk sales or merchandising either, it's just some aftermarket icing on the cake)

Thanks to Batmeh v Supermeh Yawn of Justice, the "S" now stands for Sidekick

Well I've never hear any studio say that, it's always the fans who factor in marketing and others things where it actually seems impossible for any film to make any profit.

If you ever listen to the studios then they never make money ever and they are all running at a loss and cinema is failing and theatres are all going to shut down. This has been happening at least since the invention of home video, or as long as I can remember.
To make a great film you need three things - the script, the script and the script -Alfred Hitchcock

They rent it out for deck hockey, silly!

Not to mention how many films does a studio have out at one time? 2? 3? who wants to go to a theater that has 3 choices over a theater that has 15-20?
What happens when a film has been out so long it's no longer drawing crowds but they don't have anything new to show? just keep playing the same unwatched film to empty rooms until something new comes out?

Thanks to Batmeh v Supermeh Yawn of Justice, the "S" now stands for Sidekick

They sell the product the studio makes.
Seriously? This is how business works.

Splitting the profits with theaters 50/50 just seems insane. What do the theaters do? Certainly not the work that studios do.

Remember when WB thought opening their own retail stores was the way to sell their merchandise?

To what? just show their own studios films? if that were the case theaters would be spaced apart like gas stations. and where do the smaller studios show their films? What happens if a studio has a bad year? do their theaters shut down or just stand empty taking huge losses all year?
Should they all get independant streaming video services too?

Thanks to Batmeh v Supermeh Yawn of Justice, the "S" now stands for Sidekick

Again, it all depends on the budget. most dramatic films aren't cgi loaded messes that take a ton to produce.
It's not "MY" logic, it's how they figure profits/losses on films.
Also keep in mind they can churn out something for $100m and have it turn around and break $1b and then it's yachts for everyone. when they dump a truckload of cash into a CGI heavy tentpole film and it barely breaks even, that's a dud.
But this is why the dceu is churning out duds and no, not making "thrice their budget"

Thanks to Batmeh v Supermeh Yawn of Justice, the "S" now stands for Sidekick

Then why make movies, by your statements, the numbers simply don't add up, and that's just for commercial cinema, let's not even go into dramatic films, by your logic none of them are profitable.

Okay, let's look at that.
Let's say Warner Brothers makes their own theaters. Now, they need to make enough theaters in enough markets to distribute the film, right? BvS opening in 4,242 theaters. Let's assume that's screens and not physical buildings and cut that number in half to compensate for multiplexes that played it on more than one screen. 2121 theaters.
Now, guess what? Theaters usually lease the land they put theaters on and have to pay rent. And utilities. And unions. And non-union workers. And they then have to shell out money for maintenance services, concessionsall the things in a theater. So, aside from the extraordinary initial expenses of WB building these theaters, they'd still NEVER get 100% of the gross.

doesn't make any sense to me at all, what stops them from making their own theaters and getting 100% of the profit?

That completely depends on their production budget.
If Movie "A" cost $100m to make, Grosses $700m, has to split the gross with theaters 50/50, it's made $300m.
If Movie "B" takes $250m to make, Grosses $700m, has to split the gross with theaters 50/50, it's made $225m.
That's not even taking advertising into account.

Thanks to Batmeh v Supermeh Yawn of Justice, the "S" now stands for Sidekick

They seem like it, because according to your logic, only 1% of movies, the 700 million box office range, make any money.

No, notheaters are charities, remember?

You're forgetting the gross is before they do the splits with the theaters that show the films.
Not to mention transformers films make a lot of money but they still suck.

Thanks to Batmeh v Supermeh Yawn of Justice, the "S" now stands for Sidekick

Where did THAT come from? They do analysis of any project that comes through the door before deciding to make it. Some movies they know they'll spend 100 million on and know full well they'll make 200 million and for whatever reason they decide that's acceptable for the project. On other projects, they see a much bigger payday. Say, movies with big names attached (A Tom Hanks or in his heyday, a Harrison Ford) or movies that adapt a popular property (the Harry Potter novels as an example). Movies that are part of a franchise with earmarks of being huge are considered "cash cows". And that determines how much of a budget you're willing to throw into it. It's a projected return on investment. Do you think Disney was surprised how much Star Wars TFA made? No, they had it mapped out. Maybe it did less, equaled or exceeded those projections but those projections were there.

I didn't say it made sense. I remember reading somewhere that Hollywood has like 33 different ways in which they can account for a movie's loss or gain. It is why they were able to only pay the author of Forrest Gump something like $50k. They were supposed to pay a % of the net profits, so they put ALL of the costs of the film, advertising, VHS and such against the money the movie earned, and were able to claim it didn't make any money.

tHAt doesn't make sense either, by this logic a movie needs to make 70 times their budget to be profitable.

That would be a valid point, if this wasn't Hollywierd we were talking about. They don't view profits the same way the rest of the world does.

If you invest in a stock for 100.00 with the expectation of making 500.00 but you only make 350.00, you made money but lost of your projections.
Easy enough.

I don't understand.