Off-the-Tops
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| In one sentence | A short specific list of costs, like taxes and collection fees, subtracted from a movie's gross receipts before almost anything else. |
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| Category | Film and Television |
| Related | Gross Receipts, Adjusted Gross Receipts, Residuals |
Imagine a farmers market takes a small fee out of every dollar you earn at your lemonade stand, before you even get to keep the rest. That fee comes off the very top of your earnings, before you start paying for anything else, like lemons or cups.
Off-the-tops are exactly this for a movie: a specific, limited list of deductions taken from Gross Receipts right at the start, before calculating Adjusted Gross Receipts. They typically include checking and collection costs, currency conversion, trade dues, taxes, and Residuals owed to unions.
Fun facts
- Off-the-tops are deliberately kept to a short, specific list, so that adjusted gross receipts stays a fairly large, predictable number.
- Because off-the-tops come out before almost anything else, they are paid even before the people who financed the movie start recouping their investment.
- Contracts spell out exactly which costs count as off-the-tops, since even small disagreements here can shift a lot of money.