$30 million just doesn’t go as far as it used to nowadays. Just ask Disney, whose sci-fi action spectacular “John Carter” (sans “Mars”) opened last week to less than thrilling numbers. The film made $30 million or thereabouts in its debut, good enough for second place … after “The Lorax”, which was already in its second weekend. Yup. “John Carter” couldn’t even beat out a CG kids movie that has already been playing for an entire week.
This essentially justifies all those doomsday predictions for the film weeks before it even open, as early tracking for “John Carter” had been abysmal, and fan awareness, much less anticipation, was much too low for a movie that cost a reported $250 million to make (though some estimates have the film going over-budget and being somewhere in the $300 million range). And that’s not counting advertising budgets yet, which in the world of Hollywood studio event films, usually takes up half of whatever it cost to make the movie. So yeah, around $400 million or thereabouts, give or take.
With those numbers in mind, a $30 million opening weekend for “John Carter” is, yes, disastrous.
The only solace Disney can make is that the movie did earn $70 million from overseas markets, with China and Japan still untapped. So, you know, there’s that. Will someone lose their job over this? Who knows. As someone once said, in Hollywood you don’t fail downward, you fail up. If that’s the case, someone’s got a huge promotion awaiting him/her!
Via : Box Office Mojo
