Overall, domestic ticket sales were in excess of $63 million. .... A bigger pleasant surprise was its foreign box office grosses, which BoxOfficeMojo estimates at $150 million.So how much did Vestron (the distributor) earn from Dirty Dancing in about the first year? I count about $25 million from domestic tickets plus about $60 million from foreign tickets. I'll guess that Vestron earned at least $3 for each video cassette, so that's something like $1 million. That adds up to about $86 million.
Grosses represent ticket sales that the distributor splits with the theaters after expenses. There are various formulas to determine how much of the ticket revenue is returned to the distributor, and one can imagine that Vestron got back $25 million from the domestic release. The foreign return is more difficult to estimate, but might be higher than $60 million.
Of course, Vestron had more clout and experience in the video release of the movie. It sold 300,750 units by February 1, 1988.
For the sake of my discussion here, I will round that sum way down to about $50 million as Vestron's total earnings from Dirty Dancing before Vestron declared bankruptcy in 1992.
To resolve the bankruptcy declaration, Vestron sold all its assets for $27 million. For the sake of my discussion here, I will say that $25 million was Vestron's remaining money earned from Dirty Dancing.
If so, then I am estimating that, during 1987-1992, Vestron earned about $50 million from the movie, spent about half of it, and gave about half of it to the other company, LIVE Entertainment, that bought Vestron out of bankruptcy.
Of course, my estimation here is just my ignorant speculation. However, I still think I am safe to say that a huge amount of money -- I have estimated $25 million -- was dissipated by Vestron during only about five years, 1987-1992. What happened to all that money?
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Vestron used some of its Dirty Dancing earnings to make other movies. The Wikipedia article about Vestron Pictures provides the following list of movies that Vestron distributed. (The date after the movie's title is the movie's "release date".)
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Malcolm -- July 20, 1986
Malcolm is a tram enthusiast who becomes involved with a pair of would-be bank robbers.
The movie cost about $1 million to make and earned about $3.8 million at the box office.
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Slaughter High -- November 14, 1986
The story tells about a group of adults, responsible for a prank gone wrong on April Fool's Day, who are invited to a reunion at their defunct high school, where a masked killer awaits inside.
The movie cost about $2.1 million to make and earned about $90,000 at the box office.
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Billy Galvin -- November 1986
The movie has a release date of "November 1986", but it was not actually released. There is not even a DVD.
Conflict arises between a steelworker and his son. The father wants the boy to have a chance to make more of himself than he did, but the son wants to follow in his father's footsteps and become a steel-worker himself.
The movie cost about $1.5 million to make. I could not find any earnings.
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Alpine Fire -- February 20, 1987
An older couple have two children, a daughter Belli, who wanted to be a teacher until her father pulled her out of school, and the younger son Bub, who is deaf and, although he works like a man, mentally child-like. Part of his work is quarrying stones to build walls. In high summer, Bub becomes frustrated when a power mower stops working and throws it over a cliff. Fleeing his father's anger, he takes to sleeping away from the house while continuing to break rocks. Belli visits him and they sleep together. By winter, the boy is back in the house and Belli is pregnant. Soon their parents must know.
I could not find any cost or earnings information about the movie.
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The Adventure of the Action Hunters -- May 1987
Two men search for hidden money and battle gangsters.
I could not find any cost or earnings information.
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Continued in Part 2.
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