(FORTUNE Magazine) – Think fast: What would you rather have, five bucks or 5% of the net profits of a hit movie?

If you're smart, you'll take the fin and run. In movieland as in the circus, there's often no net. The reason: Studio accounting procedures and big stars' salaries skim off large portions of the gross profits of a movie, leaving "net participants"-- including second-tier stars, writers, and producers, who receive "net points" as a bonus to their up-front salaries--in the cold.

Net profits aren't illegal; the problem is that they aren't really net profits in the accounting sense. Rather, as the document below from the hit Indecent Proposal shows, net profits reflect expenses that may or may not bear any relation to the actual cost of making a particular movie. (Engelhard, who wrote the novel, threatened to sue and settled out of court.)

--Tim Carvell

--Gross Receipts. The studio's revenues from the film to date. Interestingly, for home video sales, where movies often make much of their profits, only 20% of the gross is included--in this case, $15 million from a video gross of $75 million. The film's video distributor, Paramount Home Video, kept 80%, since it was treated as a separate company that oversaw the release-- even though it's a wholly owned division of Paramount Pictures.

--Less: Distribution Fees. These cover the overhead costs of running a studio and are deducted as a flat percentage of revenues, typically around 35%.

--Less: Distribution Expenses. The actual cost of putting the movie in theaters, including advertising, printing copies of the film, and transportation.

--Less: Interest on Negative Cost. The studio views the cost of financing a film as a loan and therefore charges interest on the picture, typically 125% of the prime rate, for however long it remains in the red.

--Negative Cost. This is the cost of producing everything that you see onscreen--from film, sets, and the up-front fees paid to cast and crew to the shares of gross receipts paid to power players like Robert Redford, Woody Harrelson, and Demi Moore.

--Net Profit. Now, does this figure mean that Paramount lost nearly $36 million on a hit film? Of course not. It just means that according to the contract, the studio has to make at least another $36 million before anyone sees a penny of "net."

--Tim Carvell