How do movies make money?

Gross ticket sales

This is the total amount of money that people paid for tickets for a film.

It's not the same as how much money the film makes, because you have to take off the cost of producing the movie in the first place, advertising and distributing the film around the world.

Merchandising and more

Making money out of films isn't just about selling cinema tickets. There's loads of other ways of cashing in.

• T-shirts
• Toys
• Fast food tie-ins
• Theme park rides
• Renting out DVDs and videos
• Selling DVDs and videos
• Getting money for TV screenings

Many of the companies that make films are also involved in TV and they can use a successful cinema release as a way to promote their channel - it's hard to say how much that's worth to a business.