Minimum Guarantee (MG)

A minimum guarantee (MG) is the advance a distributor or buyer pays for a film's rights in a territory or channel — "minimum" because it's the floor the rights holder receives regardless of how the release performs. The distributor recoups the MG (plus costs and fees) from the film's revenue in that market before further money flows back.

MGs are the hard currency of the independent business. A pre-sale is an MG promised on delivery; an acquisition out of a festival is an MG for a finished film; a streamer buyout is effectively a giant MG covering global rights. When producers model a film's financing, "sales estimates" are estimates of MGs, territory by territory — and the gap between an agent's optimistic "ask" and bankable "take" numbers is where many financing plans quietly die.

A deal with no MG — distribution on royalty splits alone — isn't automatically bad, but it moves all risk to the filmmaker: the distributor spends little, recoups its costs first, and overages may never arrive. Filmmakers weighing such deals should price the distributor's commitment, not their enthusiasm.

MGs, waterfalls, and recoupment order are exactly the literacy our Financing Readiness Desk teaches before writers and producers sign anything.