Friday, March 09, 2012

Drumbeats of Doom

The New York Post says:

Disney’s big-budget weekend release, “John Carter,” managed to ring up just $500,000 in the box office for its midnight showings — a bad sign for the studio, which spent at least $250 million on the movie.

By comparison, Paramount Pictures’ “Thor” opened last May with a midnight showing of $3.3 million, and Relativity’s fall release, “Immortals,” booked $1.4 million on its late night debut.

And the L.A. Times says:

Walt Disney Studios' Martian adventure film "John Carter" appears to be heading, in the words of one financial analyst, "to the red ink planet."

Wall Street media analysts said the studio could lose $100 million to $165 million on its big-budget epic, which opened Friday in theaters worldwide.

The prayer vigils have no doubt begun at 500 S. Buena Vista. We feel the Mouse's pain.

15 comments:

TheBarsOnMars said...

People seem to forget just how much of making movies is a gamble.

Also, how can they attempt to count their returns on something almost before they’ve even released it? I saw John Carter (of Mars) and enjoyed myself. Whatever the fates deal to Disney & others, this is all just for entertainments sake, isn’t it?

I wish worthwhile science & construction projects got that sort of venture capital. Oh, but I guess those kind of projects take real time & effort before you can really see any of their clear investment returns, & the Money Men don't like that.

Anonymous said...

jester says: I would watch jonh cater of mars rather then that crappy remake clash of the titans.

Anonymous said...

"People seem to forget just how much of making movies is a gamble"

And that is exactly why you shouldn't gamble the studios fortunes on big tentpoles ONLY, and assume they will all be hits.

Anonymous said...

I saw an add for the DVD release of The Immortals, and then right afterwards saw an ad for John Carter. I couldn't distinguish enough of a difference between the two to decide where to spend my hard-earned dollars.

So I went with neither.

Anonymous said...

^^^That's probably more of a comment on you then on the films

Anonymous said...

'That's probably more of a comment on you then on the films'

Perhaps ones sense of intuitiveness. Something that could be lacking by the producers of both entities.

Anonymous said...

Wow. I didn't think the movie would be as bad as the reviews said, but I was wrong. It's terrible.

It's a jumble of half backed ideas taken FAR too seriously. The actors are wooden. The design of the film reminds me of really bad deviant art, only in most cases not as good.

I don't understand why they fight with swords and yet fly on space ships.

The sword fighting was lame, and very badly staged and performed--very amateur. Disney should know there are experts that specialize in this sort of thing for the movies.

Skip it.

Anonymous said...

'Skip it.'

From what I am seeing, I'd say its a good idea. But reading on where this movies has come from, I'd be interested in reading the book, and getting a lot more out of it.

Anonymous said...

The books are O. Cheap and isposable. Certainly not great literature, nor particularly well it ten. Breezy fun for young kids, though.

Anonymous said...

Take literature recommendations from that guy^^
I think not.

Anonymous said...

I thought Pixar was supposed to be the land of story geniuses. How did Stanton manage to screw this one up?

Anonymous said...

Remember, Stanton's only directed one film prior to this. Wall-e.

The rest, he CO-directed.

Joss Whedon wrote the script for Toy Story.

Anonymous said...

A -Stanton didn't screw up the film. It's a better film than Avatar and the Star War prequels (if not the entire series). Disney screwed up the US marketing big time - gain

B - Whedon did not write TS1 - he got a screen credit but freely admits they didn't use anything he wrote.

Disclaimer - I didn't like Nemo or Wall-E

Anonymous said...

A-Stanton did screw up the film. He "wrote" and "directed" the mess. It's terrible.

B-Whedon did write Toy Story 1, and graciously shares credit with at least 3 other writers.

Anonymous said...

"Take literature recommendations from that guy^^
I think not."

Of course, no one ever said the Carter books were well written or literature. They're comics. I love comics.

But it ain't Moby Dick.

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