News Corp. will earn $350 million to $400 million from James Cameron’s “Avatar” once the world’s top-grossing film is also released on pay television and DVD, said two people with knowledge of its financial performance.
The sum represents News Corp.’s approximately 40 percent cut of as much as $1 billion that the film is expected to earn for its 20th Century Fox and “Avatar” investors, said the people, who declined to be named because the projections are private. Fox also collects a distribution fee on the box office revenue.
News Corp. chairman-CEO Rupert Murdoch took on investors to hedge the risks on the movie, produced for about $300 million, according to one of the people. New York-based Dune Entertainment owns about 40 percent and London-based Ingenious Media Holdings has the rest.
