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Apple's 'F1: The Movie' Surpasses $500 Million Box Office Earnings

joshwithachance said:
I liked it, but it felt a solid 30 minutes too long to me. And story wise... it was rather dull. Especially compared to 'Gran Turismo' just 2 years ago. Regardless, it was a visual FEAST.

With that said, if the reported $200m production budget is accurate then the film is officially churning a profit now; so congrats to Apple for finally having a box office hit on their hands!
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A bit less financially exciting than that, unfortunately
(older article, so update the ticket sales # of course)

Screenshot 2025-07-28 at 08.43.52.png
 
turbineseaplane said:
Ahh .. I stand corrected.
Thank you.

Looks like it’s heading for profitability at some point at least.
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mattopotamus said:
Yeah, 2.5x budget is a good baseline to determine profit.
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It depends on how you define profit; Hollywood movies (almost) never make a profit, no matter the box office and other revenue. That's way getting a big cut of the net profits is a losing proposition. That doesn't mean, however, that Hollywood doesn't make money.

Hollywood pioneered a genius accounting trick - the rolling break, meaning the more revenue the higher the costs attributed to the movie so the actual movie never shows a profit.

For example:

Studio creates MovieCO, a wholly owned subsidiary that it lends, with interest, x millions to make a movie. The loan is payed back from the gross, meanwhile distribution, marketting, studio overhead, etc. are all charged to the movie and the more money it makes the more gets charged. Hollywood Accounting is a brilliant, if shady, system, and fascinating to learn.
 
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Box office revenue is split between the theatre, film distributor and the production company, and as Apple is not a distributor and used someone else to get it into theatres (so I guess they took a lager cut then normal). So given that and the typical splits, I doubt the film recovered all its production costs. It's only when you factor in the global sales that it might just break even - not that Apple cares.

For example... a blockbuster grossing $100 million in its opening week domestically and costing $200 million to produce:
  • Theatre share (assuming 30% in Week 1): $30 million
  • Distributor share (70%): $70 million
  • After distribution fees (20% of $70M = $14M) and taxes/P&A, the studio might net ~$40–50 million. This covers only part of a $200 million budget, highlighting why global box office and ancillary revenue are crucial.
 
Quasselstripper said:
They literally didn’t pay anything for marketing but instead spammed iOS with banners.
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From a previous MR article about the movie:

MacRumors said:
The production cost for F1 is estimated to have exceeded $250 million, with marketing expenses reportedly adding another $100 million. While the film's box office performance has exceeded that of Apple's previous theatrical titles, the total gross remains below the estimated break-even threshold for a film with such a high combined budget. Box office returns are also typically split between studios and exhibitors, with studios often receiving around 50% of domestic ticket revenue and a smaller share internationally.
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jlc1978 said:
It depends on how you define profit; Hollywood movies (almost) never make a profit, no matter the box office and other revenue. That's way getting a big cut of the net profits is a losing proposition. That doesn't mean, however, that Hollywood doesn't make money.

Hollywood pioneered a genius accounting trick - the rolling break, meaning the more revenue the higher the costs attributed to the movie so the actual movie never shows a profit.

For example:

Studio creates MovieCO, a wholly owned subsidiary that it lends, with interest, x millions to make a movie. The loan is payed back from the gross, meanwhile distribution, marketting, studio overhead, etc. are all charged to the movie and the more money it makes the more gets charged. Hollywood Accounting is a brilliant, if shady, system, and fascinating to learn.
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And then there are gross percentages, so the above the line fees keep increasing as the box office increases.

What is sinister though is companies pulling their own content from their own streaming platforms as soon as they start making money.

Why are your favorite but more obscure shows and movies disappearing never to be seen again? That’s why.
 
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This is not a movie that will make you think deeply about your life choices. Also, it is not trying to accurately portray F1 life. It is entertaining, though.

One of very few recent movies I watched (I do not watch many) that had actually excellently mixed sound and some of cinematography was really cool. Many modern movies have absolutely garbage sound mixing and one cannot understand any speech from all the noise.

Totally do not regret watching; will watch it again when it streams. It was just a fun movie, I thought. Also, I do not consider myself in either Pro or Con Brad camp. His performance was adequate (if you want to see a phenomenal Brad Pitt, watch Snatch).
 
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SidricTheViking said:
Obviously tastes differ. Having said that, both my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed it (yes, we have somewhat different tastes in film).
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Superman or this F1 film? Most of the older F1 fans seem to not think much of this Apple F1 film, from what I have seen.

Wanna see a good racing film? Watch Ferrari or Rush or Ford V Ferrari (which I really liked).
 
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IPheela said:
movie was so mid, walked out halfway through.

best racing movie that i've watched in theaters is gran turismo and it's not close
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I thought the CGI car overlays when they were sat in the sims was a bit cheesy and crap, but otherwise it's a solid film. Certainly an interesting story too. I see he crashed majorly and killed a spectator in one race but they bought him back mentally as understandably he was devastated, and he carried on racing, and still is.
Whether the experiment was a fluke or proved the point I don't know? Anyway good film. 👍
 
Well, tastes differ …
Me, I will wait until it comes to ATV+ and then watch it. I get ATV+ thru T-MobIle otherwise I’d probably would never watch it, but that’s just me.
 
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As an F1 fan for over 2 decades, I thought it was a great movie. You cannot capture the technical side of F1 without boring the average viewer. They did a great job of keeping it casual while still adding in elements of realism of the sport.

I’m happy that it’s turning out to be a success for Apple.
 
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WarmWinterHat said:
Brad Pitt hasn't had a decent movie since Inglorious Bastards.

...plus F1, for me, is about as exciting as reading a phone book.

Edit: Ad Astra was okay.
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Inglorious Bastards is a modern masterpiece, but you really didn't like any of Moneyball, The Big Short, or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? I thought all 3 of those were very good to great.
 
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Pezimak said:
Superman or this F1 film? Most of the older F1 fans seem to not think much of this Apple F1 film, from what I have seen.

Wanna see a good racing film? Watch Ferrari or Rush or Ford V Ferrari (which I really liked).
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I was referring to F1 (haven’t seen Superman). Loved Le Mans ‘66 (aka Ford v Ferrari), Road and Gran Turismo. Neither of us is a Formula 1 fan (or motor racing fan of any kind). We simply enjoyed the energy and the journey of F1. A simple story told well with some excellent driving moments. Well worth the price of admission.
😎🇮🇪☘️
 
I_Sheep said:
The budget is between $200-$300 and the general rule of thumb is to double that to calculate the marketing, so it’s probably not made a profit yet.
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Budget around 250M, marketing 100M+, they need around 600M to break even (they don't get all the gross as the theaters have to get their cut). I'm sure Apple is very happy with the performance, though, given how grim the box office has been post COVID

This movie will make them money from additional digital and disc sales. It will probably be on Apple TV+ exclusively to drive prescription, but hard to say how many more subs they'll get because of it. Which is why a company like WB actually pulls contents from their own streaming service and license them to others because it translates into cash.
 
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I_Sheep said:
The budget is between $200-$300 and the general rule of thumb is to double that to calculate the marketing, so it’s probably not made a profit yet.
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The sponsors on the cars actually paid to be in the movie — reported to be up to $60 million.
 
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