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Math in the News
Star Wars: The Box Office Awakens!
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What You Will Learn
• Summary– In this issue of Math in the News we look
at profit and loss as we analyze Disney’s acquisition of the Star Wars franchise.
• Graph a linear system• Solve a linear system graphically• Determine the break-even point for a
business
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Analyzing Star Wars
• The new movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens has taken the box office by storm. Within weeks it has exceeded $1 billion worldwide. (Source: the-numbers.com.)
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Analyzing Star Wars
• However, Disney, which now owns the Star Wars franchise, paid $4 billion. Also, the Star Wars movie cost $200 million to produce.
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Problem Solving
How many movie tickets will Disney need to sell to show a profit?
Discuss as a class how you would solve this.
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Analyzing Star Wars
• To find the number of tickets, solve a linear system made up of two lines: The cost and the ticket sales.
Cost
Ticket Sales
Break Even
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Analyzing Star Wars
• For this linear system:– Cost is a fixed amount: $4.2 billion– Ticket sales is variable and depends on the number of tickets sold.
Assume that each ticket costs $10.– The Break Even is where the linear graphs intersect.
Cost
Ticket Sales
Break Even
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Analyzing Star Wars
• Defining the linear system mathematically (using a scale of millions):
– Cost: y = 4,200– Ticket sales: y = 10x
Cost
Ticket Sales
Break Even
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Analyzing Star Wars
• Use a graphing calculator to graph the linear system and find the intersection point. The y-value of 4200 means 420 million tickets need to be sold to reach break even.
Break Even
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Analysis
• Since The Force Awakens, as of the end of 2015, has made over a $1 billion, then roughly 100 million tickets have been sold.
• To reach break even, an additional 300 million tickets need to be sold.
• Current estimates are that The Force Awakens will sell over 200 million tickets.
• With its first movie in its newly owned Star Wars franchise, Disney should make more than half its investment.
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Problem Solving
What do you think Disney will do to reach the break even point?
Discuss as a class.