Rich Ross Resigns

[Duckberg]

I posted this in the film forum, but thought it tied into enough ongoing conversations about the parks (ex: Muppets, Marvel) and Disney management to post here also. (Feel free to move.)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/20/us-disney-ross-idUSBRE83J14320120420

Is RICH Ross now POOR Ross

 

[G00fyDad]

For those saying that The Avengers will not do well, you might wanna go to the theater and look at the counter. My wife drug me to see Chimpanzee yesterday and they are already selling tickets for The Avengers. I asked the guy at the counter how well it's been doing and he said several shows have sold out for the first 3 days. This thing is going to be a monster and it's going to kill at the box office. I'm not saying its gonna be the highest grossing film of all time but it's definitely gonna tear anything else out a new one.

 

[Captain Neo]

This presentation to Paramount Executives back in 2005 shows exactly what John Carter SHOULD HAVE BEEN:

http://vimeo.com/35852355

Disney really dropped the ball and frankly everyone involved (including Stanton should be fired). Seriously, how do you screw THAT up?

 

[Gregoryp73]

This presentation to Paramount Executives back in 2005 shows exactly what John Carter SHOULD HAVE BEEN:

http://vimeo.com/35852355

Disney really dropped the ball and frankly everyone involved (including Stanton should be fired). Seriously, how do you screw THAT up?

Wow, this is a year before avatar final script draft...and yet a lot of the imagery (floating lands with waterfalls, a lot of the 6 legged creatures) see relatively the same...I'm wondering if he may have seen this and decided to lift elements.

Also "from the author of Tarzan" should have been much more prominent in the marketing...like this promo.

Great find!!

 

[orky8]

This presentation to Paramount Executives back in 2005 shows exactly what John Carter SHOULD HAVE BEEN:

http://vimeo.com/35852355

Disney really dropped the ball and frankly everyone involved (including Stanton should be fired). Seriously, how do you screw THAT up?

I haven't seen the movie, but the trailers completely turned me off to it. Granted the paramount presentation is much longer (and a different audience), but it is clearly marketing who screwed this up and needs to be fired as I want to see the movie pitched to Paramount. Look at this trailer (especially the first scene) and tell me this is a movie you want to go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlvYKl1fjBI

It's like the said, hey there was a cool scene like this is Star Wars, so lets use this scene to sell the movie. Action, action, action. If, as with John Carter, people don't know the plot, you need to sell the plot as well.

 

[G00fyDad]

This presentation to Paramount Executives back in 2005 shows exactly what John Carter SHOULD HAVE BEEN:

http://vimeo.com/35852355

Disney really dropped the ball and frankly everyone involved (including Stanton should be fired). Seriously, how do you screw THAT up?

Okay. Plain and simple. John Carter was cool but if they had actually made THAT version and vision then I the police would have to be called to pry me out of the theater. That just looked EPIC. Wow.

 

[misterID]

Okay. Plain and simple. John Carter was cool but if they had actually made THAT version and vision then I the police would have to be called to pry me out of the theater. That just looked EPIC. Wow.

If you knew how some of the worst bombs were actually planned, before studio execs savaged them into mediocrity, it would make you cry... For the screenwriter.

I swear I saw an initial JCoM teaser that was fantastic. After that, never saw it again. The rest basically looked like Prince Of Persia 2.

 

[Captain Neo]

Wow, this is a year before avatar final script draft...and yet a lot of the imagery (floating lands with waterfalls, a lot of the 6 legged creatures) see relatively the same...I'm wondering if he may have seen this and decided to lift elements.

Also "from the author of Tarzan" should have been much more prominent in the marketing...like this promo.

Great find!!

James Cameron openly admits he was "influenced" by John Carter along with other sci fi pulp books. He straight up ripped off from some of them.

All of these came out decades before Avatar.

 

[Thrill]

Still, you'd think a $200m profit would be enough to green light a sequel.

$200 million production budget with a $400 million box office gross is likely a loss. The rule of thumb is that 50% of box office revenue is take-home cash for the company that produced it, and the production budget doesn't include marketing. For Prince of Persia, the box office probably covered the production costs, and the marketing budget was a loss.

It will be very front-loaded, meaning everyone that wants to see it will see it first and second weekend. It won't have long legs at the box office like The Hunger Games has.

The Dark Knight had legs, to some extent. It had a $150,000,000 opening weekend, as The Avengers projects. It's not a perfect comparison, since they're different movies, The Avengers didn't get the free marketing that The Dark Knight did (although that was a few months before the movie came out), and The Avengers will have 3D. I can't see The Avengers spending months atop the box office, but I don't think that it's unrealistic to expect it to approach $1 billion worldwide. Might be a little unlikely, but we'll see.

Disney really dropped the ball and frankly everyone involved (including Stanton should be fired). Seriously, how do you screw THAT up?

Fire Andrew Stanton? The same Andrew Stanton who made Finding Nemo, one of the highest grossing animated films of all time? He wasn't in charge of the marketing, and, from what I gather, that was the downfall of this movie. Keep him in animation, maybe, but don't fire him. It's not a good move, unless Disney wants Dreamworks to get a great director.

 

[HMF]

Lets be honest here. today's Walt Disney Company especially with the film department is no longer the creative entity it once was. For all intents and purposes the company is now the "Disney Marketing & Distribution Company".

 

[AEfx]

That is where people are making wrong assumptions. Do you honestly think that anyone who sent to see Thor and Captain America DIDN'T go see Iron Man? It's the same audience.

Me, for one.

 

[Captain Neo]

Fire Andrew Stanton? The same Andrew Stanton who made Finding Nemo, one of the highest grossing animated films of all time? He wasn't in charge of the marketing, and, from what I gather, that was the downfall of this movie. Keep him in animation, maybe, but don't fire him. It's not a good move, unless Disney wants Dreamworks to get a great director.

yes. As director he was responsible for visuals and charecter designs which left alot to be desired especially compared to the proposed paramount versioni posted above. Stanton also had a hand in changing the film title. He should have known better.

 

[Captain Neo]

Fire Andrew Stanton? The same Andrew Stanton who made Finding Nemo, one of the highest grossing animated films of all time? He wasn't in charge of the marketing, and, from what I gather, that was the downfall of this movie. Keep him in animation, maybe, but don't fire him. It's not a good move, unless Disney wants Dreamworks to get a great director.

yes. As director he was responsible for visuals and charecter designs which left alot to be desired especially compared to the proposed paramount versioni posted above. Stanton also had a hand in changing the film title. He should have known better.

Just because Stanton directed a high grossing film back in the day doesn't mean all his movies are automatically going to be good (see George lucas)

 

[DocMcHulk]

2) In regards to a movies success... the box office figures we see are not the amounts that the studio receives to cover its costs of making, distributing and marketing a film... therefore if the box office # is relatively close to the estimated cost of a film (which usually does not include marketing) it would probably be safe to assume that a studio was at a loss on that particular film, at least in relationship to the revenue received from the theatrical release alone

That is actually a very good point and something most people dont know or forget (like I do)

 

[DocMcHulk]

Of that slate, almost every movie is incredibly difficult to market (The Lone Ranger, Frankenweenie, Oz, Maleficent, Brave), and there really doesn't appear to be a runaway hit in the bunch.

Frankenweenie will bomb horribly. The others... to early to tell in my opinion.

 

[DisneyMusician2]

The saving grace with Lone Ranger is that Johnny Depp may carry the marketing just by being a part of the movie for the younger fan base he has built up from working on the Pirates movies.

 

[Gregoryp73]

Frankenweenie will bomb horribly. The others... to early to tell in my opinion.

I don't quite know about that...Tim Burton fans foam at the mouth anytime he releases stop-motion flicks...even that yawner "the corpse bride" did 110 million world wide...And those movies don't have the budgets as effects laden films.

Not to mention every Hot-topic from east to west coast will be laden with frankenweenie merch.

 

[captainkidd]

For those saying that The Avengers will not do well, you might wanna go to the theater and look at the counter. My wife drug me to see Chimpanzee yesterday and they are already selling tickets for The Avengers. I asked the guy at the counter how well it's been doing and he said several shows have sold out for the first 3 days. This thing is going to be a monster and it's going to kill at the box office. I'm not saying its gonna be the highest grossing film of all time but it's definitely gonna tear anything else out a new one.

The same goes for all big releases. They were selling tickets to the last Harry Potter movies 2 months in advance. Same for Star Wars. Same for The Hunger Games. Same for the Twilight movies.

There are 3 movies that have ever grossed over $500 million at the domestic box office - Avatar, Titanic and The Dark Knight. Nothing in 2012 is going to add to that.

 

[Maerj]

yes. As director he was responsible for visuals and charecter designs which left alot to be desired especially compared to the proposed paramount versioni posted above. Stanton also had a hand in changing the film title. He should have known better.

The version Stanton delivered was basically the same as shown in that promo. It was a great promo for sure but even that version may not have turned out the way everyone is imagining.

I enjoyed John Carter and I think that it *should* have been a huge hit. I blame marketing for it not doing better. They should have started with a campaign early on saying "Who is John Carter?" Then explain who he is, who the writer of the stories was, etc. Even a behind the scenes promo special would have been a great thing to do. When you spend that much on a movie, you need to get the word out.

 

[Maerj]

I don't quite know about that...Tim Burton fans foam at the mouth anytime he releases stop-motion flicks...even that yawner "the corpse bride" did 110 million world wide...And those movies don't have the budgets as effects laden films.

Not to mention every Hot-topic from east to west coast will be laden with frankenweenie merch.

Not to mention that Burton directed his version of Alice in Wonderland and I'm sure no one thought that it would make over a billion dollars worldwide.