This massive box office tally for Paramount can be primarily attributed to four films that earned the studio $800 million alone. As of this weekend Iron Man is the top grosser with $305 million, Indiana Jones And The Retarded Flying Saucer has earned $293 million, Kung Fu Panda has made $156 million, and Cloverfield brought in $80 million during its late winter run. While Paramount distributed all of these movies and will certainly be sharing in the profits, they produced none of them and will see the lion’s share of the money go to other people.

Iron Man was the first film financed by Marvel Studios who will recoup most of the profits. Indiana Jones And The Convoluted Narrative was financed by George Lucas who has from the very beginning ensured that he and Steve Spielberg earn the bulk of the profits from the Indiana Jones franchise. Kung Fu Panda was produced by Dreamworks, so it will also line Spielberg’s pockets. And Cloverfield was produced by JJ Abrams (the mastermind behind TV’s Lost and Alias) who will be getting a large percentage of the profits. Sadly the only movie Paramount has in theatres right now that they financed themselves is the embarrassing failure The Love Guru.