dr_teeth90210
Active Member
Haha.... Yes! How could I forget,lol.
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Disney Expects $200M loss from John Carter
- Thread starter SyracuseOrange
- Start date
Haha.... Yes! How could I forget,lol.
Captain Chaos
Well-Known Member
Just looked at my local theater's line up for this weekend... Hunger Games playing pretty much every hour on the hour all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday.. John Carter??? 1:00PM and that is it... Basically, my theater is saying, John Carter is already out of here during prime movie going times: evenings... Meanwhile, there are two movies which came out before JC did and are still getting evenings viewings despite Hunger Games taking over several theaters...
Disneyfanman
Well-Known Member
We saw it the second weekend in IMAX 3d. It was a prime Saturday Show, the theater complex was crowded, and there were about 25 people in the theater. My son works there and they consider it the flop of the year so far.
It's out in the UK.
Silver Figment
Active Member
It's not really all that surprising, nothing i saw made me want to go see that movie.
sublimesting
Well-Known Member
The movie trailer was a confusing mess. I think they were aiming it at young males with no attention span....pure visiuals. The other thing was that all the scenes looked the same, an alien war in a desert...kinds looked boring to stare at for 2 hours. Now that I have learned what the story was about it sounds like it could potentially be pretty cool.
flavious27
Well-Known Member
I hate to see what dmc will be charging for it in 5 weeks. They want to sell thor for $32.
216bruce
Well-Known Member
Saw it at a D23 preview. I thought it was well made, fun and enjoyable. It wasn't anything more than a good entertaining movie. The marketing of it was horrible. Had I not read a couple of the books years ago, I wouldn't have had any idea what the movie was about or what to expect.
I understand that Disney spent about 100 million in marketing this film. Where? Other than a bad trailer, I sure didn't see any big push.
You almost get the impression that Disney wants some of their product to fail for some weird reason- "Gnomeo and Juliet", "John Carter" being two examples. These were both very enjoyable, well made films that no one saw.
Anyone I've talked to seems to have at least been "so-so" about "John Carter", no one said it was bad. There was just no interest and that is the fault of the company and their marketing folks.
I understand that Disney spent about 100 million in marketing this film. Where? Other than a bad trailer, I sure didn't see any big push.
You almost get the impression that Disney wants some of their product to fail for some weird reason- "Gnomeo and Juliet", "John Carter" being two examples. These were both very enjoyable, well made films that no one saw.
Anyone I've talked to seems to have at least been "so-so" about "John Carter", no one said it was bad. There was just no interest and that is the fault of the company and their marketing folks.
Bairstow
Well-Known Member
People are blaming the marketing for the failure of John Carter of Mars, but I thought the ad campaign was pretty good.
That said, this fan-made trailer is pretty nifty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BxeHQY1NuM
Speaking of Andrew Stanton, I'm wondering what his failure (if you can really call it "his") will do for the recent trend of animation directors making the transition to live-action. Tim Burton lead the way, at least in the modern era, but Brad Bird's Mission Impossible 4 made 700 million last Christmas.
That said, this fan-made trailer is pretty nifty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BxeHQY1NuM
Speaking of Andrew Stanton, I'm wondering what his failure (if you can really call it "his") will do for the recent trend of animation directors making the transition to live-action. Tim Burton lead the way, at least in the modern era, but Brad Bird's Mission Impossible 4 made 700 million last Christmas.
flavious27
Well-Known Member
Well it is mission impossible, they are money in the bank, like the pirates movies. It has also helped that movie tickets have gone up 30% since mi3.
G&J was not made by disney, it was distributed by touchstone. Also it only cost 10 mil to make g&j, it made almost 200 mil. That is very far away from a failure.
If there wasn't going to be an issue with ip, I would think that disney should have g&j featured subtly in fl.
Disneyfanman
Well-Known Member
Gnomeo and Juliet was considered a big success, and a bigger surprise. Disney didn't expect it to do well. It had long "legs" and stayed in theaters quite a while. John Carter is really hard to understand. They had many early reads that it wasn't tracking well but didn't seem to respond to the warnings. It was widely reported by media sites as much as 3 months prior to opening that the campaign was a failure. Why didn't they respond? I found the movie disappointing, but it was a ton better than many others out there the same weekend. And the title change? Did they run that by any focus groups because it seemed pretty stupid to me? I really understood the "Tangled" change, but why take out "of Mars" from the title of this film? I guess coulda, woulda, shoulda stuff, but REALLY........?
Captain Chaos
Well-Known Member
Gnomeo and Juliet did nearly 200 million in global business, pretty much split evenly between foreign and domestic... I think that was darn good for Gnomeo... The movie wasn't half bad either... I enjoyed it... I thought I read somewhere that Elton John was really annoyed at Disney for not promoting the movie well enough...
In fact: http://www.vulture.com/2011/03/elton_john_cant_believe_disney.html
In fact: http://www.vulture.com/2011/03/elton_john_cant_believe_disney.html
flavious27
Well-Known Member
For a movie that only cost about $10 million to make, Elton John should be happy with the results of that movie. Also it is getting a sequel.
flavious27
Well-Known Member
Spider-man isn't being produced by disney, it is only being made so that sony can keep the ip, they are going to keep rebooting that series as much as they can.
Forbes has an article from April 2nd that states that, as of that date, John Carter had actually made its budget back. And that was BEFORE it was paired with the Avengers for double features and before its release in Japan.
I just watched the film last night with my family and we all enjoyed it quite a bit.
So, I have questions for those of you who may be "in the know":
• Why was Iger so eager to proclaim John Carter a $200 million loss during only its second week of release? Shouldn't the company line have been "the first week's box office was underwhelming, but we stand behind what a great film this is and are confident word of mouth will make it a success".
• As someone said earlier, is it possible the company wanted this to fail for some bizarre reason? It doesn't seem plausible, but perhaps this was a way to clean house while saving face? A way to reign in the egos at Pixar (I'm not saying there are egos there, but perhaps this failure is a way to keep other talent at Pixar from jumping ship, like Brad Bird)?
• Iger stated recently "we knew we'd have problems with John Carter". Why? I know early tracking numbers weren't good, but surely the company could have saved it. Why has he always been so eager to write this one off?
• Why no action figures, toys, cross-promotion, anything? Certainly plans for these things are done at least a year in advance. Had Disney already given up on this thing a year before its release?
I have a 7 year old and he now wants John Carter toys. Why aren't there any?
I just watched the film last night with my family and we all enjoyed it quite a bit.
So, I have questions for those of you who may be "in the know":
• Why was Iger so eager to proclaim John Carter a $200 million loss during only its second week of release? Shouldn't the company line have been "the first week's box office was underwhelming, but we stand behind what a great film this is and are confident word of mouth will make it a success".
• As someone said earlier, is it possible the company wanted this to fail for some bizarre reason? It doesn't seem plausible, but perhaps this was a way to clean house while saving face? A way to reign in the egos at Pixar (I'm not saying there are egos there, but perhaps this failure is a way to keep other talent at Pixar from jumping ship, like Brad Bird)?
• Iger stated recently "we knew we'd have problems with John Carter". Why? I know early tracking numbers weren't good, but surely the company could have saved it. Why has he always been so eager to write this one off?
• Why no action figures, toys, cross-promotion, anything? Certainly plans for these things are done at least a year in advance. Had Disney already given up on this thing a year before its release?
I have a 7 year old and he now wants John Carter toys. Why aren't there any?
flavious27
Well-Known Member
A movie that grosses the same amount as its budget is not breaking even, not by a long shot. The gross of a film is split between the studio, distributor, and then the theaters. Disney was the distributor, so that share they keep. The math that is usually thrown around is that the theater get 40 - 50% of the gross, depending on the country of the theater.
So the estimated budget was $250 million. As of yesterday, the movie grossed 282 million. So for disney to break even, without counting in the $50 - $100 million in advertising and print costs, it would have needed to make atleast $500 million WW. So if disney only got $150 million, and they spent $50 - $100 million to print and promote it, they lost $150 - $200 million.
As for what Iger said in the press, that is to either satisfy shareholders or moviegoers. I doubt disney is going to spend anymore money on john carter, so merch isn't going to be a way to pay back that hole.
Thanks Flavious. But what's the reason there wasn't any merch to begin with? Nearly every action/family movie has toys associated with it. Not so with John Carter. To not have any promotional partners or merchandise tie-ins, it sounds to me like Disney gave up on this thing a long, long time before the film was even released.
As a fan of the film, I hope it makes back some more of the cash on home video, but without any promotion, I know that isn't very likely.
Unfortunately, they'll probably end up with a cult hit (like Tron was 20 years ago) and we'll get a reboot or a sequel in another 20 years. It saddens me to no end that Disney's marketing of this thing was so bad that it cost us any chance of getting the planned sequels. It's a much better flick than the stigma that will always be associated with it.
As a fan of the film, I hope it makes back some more of the cash on home video, but without any promotion, I know that isn't very likely.
Unfortunately, they'll probably end up with a cult hit (like Tron was 20 years ago) and we'll get a reboot or a sequel in another 20 years. It saddens me to no end that Disney's marketing of this thing was so bad that it cost us any chance of getting the planned sequels. It's a much better flick than the stigma that will always be associated with it.
Redsky89
Well-Known Member
I thought the movie was awesome. Cool special effects, interesting story, and a really pretty space princess. Whats not to like!!! But I also agree its marketing's fault. If this was advertised as well as half the other big budget films out there then it would have done better.