McMahon Swears WWE Movies Are Profitable

He's taken professional wrestling from National Guard armories to the biggest stadiums in the world, and next weekend, Wrestlemania XXV will earn about $25 million or more in revenue (and might feature Mickey Rourke), but somewhere along the way, that wasn't enough for Vince McMahon. The CEO, who has placed on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans a couple times this decade, gave a rare interview about the business behind the mayhem, talking to The Hollywood Reporter about the company's vertical integration.Claiming "there is no entertainment company in the world that is in every media form the way we are," McMahon details how WWE releases music, publishes magazines in at least four languages, grabs 15 million TV viewers a week, does live events about 200 times a year, makes a killing in merchandising, and over the past few years, has poured some resources into theatrical movies and straight-to-DVD fare. McMahon's latest film venture, 12 Rounds, stars the company's John Cena, and WWE "would do two to three theatricals a year. That way you can really key on your projects," McMahon explains. "And we would maybe do six to seven direct-to-DVD titles as a max. It's a natural extension to what we do. We have already developed characters for our audience." Given those factors, you'd expect WWE films to perform at least slightly better at the box office. If 15 million people watch every week and the movies are promoted heavily during the shows, shouldn't more than 170,000 - 200,000 people turn out on opening night of 12 Rounds? As it happens, the three previous WWE films have only earned $40 million total, but McMahon paints a rosier picture:

"we are profitable. We had one film that was not profitable at all: Stone Cold Steve Austin's The Condemned. There are a lot of reasons for it, none of them relating to Steve. Notwithstanding that setback, we have made money off The Marine and See No Evil."

It seems unlikely that 12 Rounds will earn back its $22 million budget during its theatrical run, and in fact, it might not make half of that amount. But we'll still get more WWE films; the company is behind the upcoming remake of the Chuck Norris action flick, Missing in Action.