[kristopolous]

that's not necessarily a good guide. Let's say you make a lot of money. You can pay your executives millions, have lush offices with swimming pools and tennis courts, company jets etc and report razor thin "profits". Not that they're doing that - but you can creative accounting your way out of reporting profits.

For instance, the star wars movies, forrest gump, lord of the rings, men in black and harry potter are all still not technically "in profit": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

That's why money in - money out is a better barometer for insurance and people with star power negotiate different terms these days like percentage of "dollars in". I made a video a couple years ago with a writer friend who is now on strike about this.

(I'm cutting out the first 5 minutes of chit-chat and it's processing on youtube, but if you see this after that happens, just go to the beginning) https://youtu.be/QZBqjZS3hZA?t=296

[lotsofpulp]

Profit margin is money in minus money out.

Movie studios and their individual accounting for individual movies are not comparable to accounting for an entire audited and publicly listed business subject to regulations, since those are explicitly not accurate portrayals of an entire businesses ins and outs.

There is no reason a business’s owners, and in a publicly listed company’s case, shareholders, are okay with executives paying themselves lavishly just to report smaller profit margins and leave the business owners with less.

I certainly would not be.