Overage
From ForcaWiki, the simple encyclopedia
| In one sentence | Extra money a movie earns above and beyond its minimum guarantee or advance, once it does better than expected. |
|---|---|
| Category | Film and Television |
| Related | Minimum Guarantee, Point, Participation |
Imagine you agree to mow a neighbor's lawn for a guaranteed 20 dollars, but you also strike a deal that if the lawn looks extra amazing and they show it off to friends who then hire you too, you will get a bonus on top of the original 20. That bonus, the extra money earned once you beat expectations, is overage.
Overage is exactly that idea for a movie: money earned once a film does better than the Minimum Guarantee or advance a distributor already promised. If a movie was expected to earn a certain amount in a territory, and it ends up earning more than that once tickets are actually sold, the extra amount above what was already guaranteed gets paid out as overage.
Fun facts
- Overage only exists if a movie truly outperforms expectations, so plenty of movies never generate any overage at all, and simply keep whatever minimum guarantee they were already promised.
- Contracts spelling out overage are often extremely detailed, precisely defining exactly how much extra money has to be earned before anyone sees a single dollar of it.
- Overage is closely related to points and Participation, other ways a movie's extra success can get shared with the people who helped make and finance it.