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avatar28689 karma

To further elaborate, due to creative accounting practices, Hollywood movies almost NEVER turn a profit. Some movies that did not make any "profit":

  • Rain Man
  • Forest Gump
  • Who Framed Roger Rabbit
  • Batman
  • Coming To America
  • My Big Fat Greek Wedding
  • Lord of the Rings Trilogy
  • Return of the Jedi
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

avatar28310 karma

Also Bill Nye. That's right, Reddit, you can blame creative accounting for the fact that Bill Nye never showed a profit in 20 years. Now go get 'em!

Here's a leaked copy of the HP:OotP accounting sheet showing how WB managed to have it officially losing $167 million despite taking in almost $1 billion in revenue. Losing that kind of money, I don't see how these studios stay in business.

I doubt it will happen any time soon but I have heard of some push to clean up these sort of accounting practices (thanks in parts to lawsuits).

avatar2844 karma

Grant, I am one of coaches of an urban middle school robotics team. We are one of the smallest teams and mostly compete against high schools and private schools. Most of our students this year were only 5th graders. Needless to say, we don't often fare well in competition but we keep it going and don't give up. They actually won the Rube Goldberg Award For Meritorious Achievement For Design Complexity this year for their four-wheel drive design and that was a great moment.

Anyways, our kids could really use some inspiration and I know that a lot of them are fans of Mythbusters. Would you be willing to talk to them and give them some advice and answer some questions on the design and engineering processes you guys use on the show? These kids are all at that critical age that can make or break their love for science and engineering and I really want to help make it. You talking with them would be one of the best things I can possibly imagine to support that. Not to mention how far it would go towards making robotics "cool" around school.

Edit: Look, I realize this is quite a long shot cause it's not the kind of cool question that people are going to want to know. I told my wife what I was up to and my 11 y.o. daughter (who is on the team) squealed with excitement at the mere idea of it and declared it would be AWESOME. If nothing comes of it at least I will have tried to do something great for them.

avatar2817 karma

It is indeed but good luck getting gross points if you're not already a big name. Hell, good luck getting paid even with gross points judging by some of the lawsuits that have been filed.