There’s a thread running on www.adultdvdtalk.com addressing the question of DVD profitability.

Janay Brown from Black Cat Productions writes: Well if I may pipe in. From what we are currently shooting an average “feature” costs us close to $10,000.00 in talent. Both male and female if we use outside contractors. Tack on another $2k – $4k for other staff.

The average GROSS numbers we’ve seen is that a video in it’s first run will often top out between $60k – $90k. Of course there are other financial considerations such as marketing, shipping, design, post-production costs to factor into that which suck up the gross profits. So of course you hope for a second run and third run where you start really seeing the profits.

Now of course my figures could be flawed compared to bigger company representatives who post here. But those are the figures WE have for being a small amateur company.

Of course talent costs differ depending on who you’re working with as well. Like I somehow don’t think we could get Krystal Steel to do an Interracial Anal scene for less than *Throws out a number* $20,000.00. But I am sure you get the idea.

I hope that helps a little and that I haven’t totally fouled up the figures. As they are just off the top of my head.

[Then someone posed the question about taxes- Brown then commented further]

Janay Brown: Well we figure on the gross generated revenue 33.3% to uncle sam as a general rule of thumb. But then there are the deductions that we get to take at the end of the year. So our total tax burden usually ends up at around 7% if that. Plus we get to deduct movies that lost money as well.

But honestly it’s hard to govern the tax rate on a per movie basis since there are other expenses to running the business as a whole. Staffing, (we now have a staff of 20 over two states), utilities, office stuff, a whole lot of travel costs. The cost of materials (Tapes, DVD blanks, etc.) There is a lot to figure into the entire deal that many people don’t actually think about.

I was just attempting to address the question of cost for just one movie minus all the sattelite costs. I hope that helps.