Math in the News

Star Wars: The Box Office Awakens!

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

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.)

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.

Problem Solving

How many movie tickets will Disney need to sell to show a profit?

Discuss as a class how you would solve this.

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

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

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

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

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.

Problem Solving

What do you think Disney will do to reach the break even point?

Discuss as a class.