How a cinema ticket is split between the exhibitor and the studio
Studios and cinema chains share each ticket under negotiated terms that vary by film, week and country. Here is how rental splits, sliding scales and settlement work.
When a cinema sells a ticket, the money does not stay with the cinema. After tax is removed, a share goes back to the distributor that supplied the film. That share is known as the film rental, and it is a cost that cinema chains report in their filings.
The split is not set by a single industry standard. It is negotiated, and it differs by film, by week of release and by country. Understanding it explains why blockbusters can leave cinemas with a thinner margin and why disputes over terms flare up from time to time.
Tax comes off before anyone is paid
The first deduction is sales tax or value-added tax. Film analyst Stephen Follows, in a 2017 explainer on UK practice, uses a 10% tax rate as an illustration and notes that UK VAT is 20%. Only the amount left after tax is divided between the two parties.
For readers outside the industry, this means the headline box office figure is not the amount that reaches a studio.
The main deal types
Follows describes the split of ticket income after tax as the model used for the vast majority of mainstream UK releases. Two other arrangements exist. In a house nut deal, the exhibitor keeps an initial sum before sharing the rest. In four-walling, the distributor pays a fixed fee for the screen and keeps the ticket income, less handling fees.
AMC Entertainment's annual report to US regulators describes a similar picture for the American market. It says AMC licenses films mainly from major studio distributors and independent distributors, film by film and theatre by theatre. Rental fees are usually based on a film's box office performance. Less often, the rate is a fixed, mutually agreed settlement.
Cinemark's most recent annual report says the majority of its rental rates use a sliding scale that follows a standard rate matrix agreed with each content provider before a film's run. Some rates use firm terms, which are a percentage of box office receipts negotiated in advance. Others are negotiated after the run.
How sliding scales and aggregate terms work
A sliding scale ties the distributor's percentage to how well a film performs. Celluloid Junkie, reporting on a 2015 dispute between Disney and cinema owners, gave an example of an aggregate scale: 51% at the base, 53% at a $100 million national gross and 54% at $200 million. A film that reached $200 million would carry 54% for every week it played.
The older approach, known as a 90/10 house allowance, worked differently. In these deals the percentage owed to the distributor declined in the later weeks of a run. Celluloid Junkie reported that they fell out of favour over the last decade in lieu of aggregate deals.
Follows describes a UK structure in which the distributor's share falls as the run continues. His example drops from 55% in the first two weeks to a base of 30% in the final weeks. Follows says distributors can usually negotiate a better deal in the opening week or two, so the exhibitor keeps more the longer a film plays.
What the typical percentages look like
Follows cites a 2014 survey of film professionals in which distributors reported an average share of 49% and exhibitors reported 43%. Those are survey averages.
He says only the biggest films commonly receive more than 50%, usually from major distributors in the first week or two. Independent distributors typically receive 28% to 35%. Most of these specialist titles carry a minimum guarantee, for example 35% against a guarantee of £100, where the exhibitor pays whichever amount is greater.
Follows also says the UK has among the highest exhibitor splits in the world. He attributes this partly to high media advertising costs and historic deals. A widely repeated claim that cinemas keep only 10% of the ticket, he writes, probably comes from rare 90% house nut deals applied to an initial slice of income.
“The split is not set by a single industry standard.”
When terms become a dispute
Because the terms are negotiated, a distributor can push them for a major release. In 2015, Disney was reported by the Wall Street Journal to be seeking 60% of admissions for tentpole films in North America, against the roughly 50% studios typically receive. Celluloid Junkie qualified the figure with the words 'If the WSJ is to be believed'.
In Germany that year, Disney raised the film rental for Avengers: Age of Ultron from 47.7% to 53% of ticket sales. Exhibitors representing 686 screens in 193 small towns boycotted the film, according to the same report.
That dispute also involved per cap terms. A per cap sets an expected gross for a theatre based on average ticket prices in its area. If the reported gross falls short, the exhibitor pays the difference. Disney's proposal used the national average ticket price of $8.12, and the article suggested regional per caps as a compromise.
Disney's master licence at the time also moved the matinee cut-off from 6 p.m. to 5 p.m. and limited split-screen programming, in which two films share one screen.
What it means for a cinema chain's accounts
Cinema chains book film rentals as a variable cost. Cinemark's filing says they fluctuate with admissions revenue and are based on box office receipts under sliding-scale, firm-terms or post-run negotiated arrangements. It adds that film rental costs as a share of revenue are generally higher in periods when more blockbusters are released.
Cinemark lists film rentals and advertising together at $877.0 million for 2025, against $859.6 million for 2024. Advertising is expensed as incurred, so that line includes more than the split with distributors.
AMC says that in some European territories film rental fees are set weekly, and some licences pay a flat amount per ticket instead of a share of revenue.
Settlement is not instant. Celluloid Junkie reported that on average, exhibitors make on-account estimate payments 21 days after a playdate week began, and that final percentages may be negotiated afterwards, for reasons such as a film under- or over-performing. Cinemark's filing also notes that distributors set release dates and fund marketing, while the cinema schedules films in each theatre.
