Disney's ‘John Carter’ set to lose $200 million

[Wendy]

The Walt Disney Co. said Monday that it expects to book a loss of $200 million on the movie in the quarter through March. That ranks it among Hollywood's all-time biggest money-losers.

Directed by Pixar's Andrew Stanton, the 3-D effects-laden movie about a Civil War veteran transplanted to Mars was already headed to the "Red Ink Planet," according to Cowen & Co. analyst Doug Creutz. Yet he expected a write-down of about half that size.

Disney said "John Carter" has brought in about $184 million in ticket sales worldwide so far. But ticket sales are split roughly in half with theatre owners. The movie's production budget is estimated to be about $250 million with about $100 million more spent on marketing.

The movie was based on a series of books written by the late Edgar Rice Burroughs, starting with "A Princess of Mars" in 1912 and ending with "John Carter of Mars," published posthumously in 1964.

There was plenty of material for sequels and prequels but they seem highly unlikely now.

The poor reception was a shock given Stanton's directing success with movies like "Finding Nemo" and "Wall-E," each of which won an Oscar for best animated feature.

Disney said the loss on "John Carter" will cause its studio to lose $80 million to $120 million for the quarter. Profits from other movies and home video disc sales will be more than wiped out.

Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce said the studio's projected loss is more than double what he had expected, and that will cause him to trim his estimate for Disney's earnings. The hefty spending on production and marketing is causing the Burbank, Calif., company to book the loss sooner than might be the case for a smaller-budget film.

Did anyone see this, if so do you think it's as bad as they say it is?

[foreverducky]

I haven't seen it, but wow, it seems our expectations are way too high now-a-days. I mean the movie made $184 million! That's 184,000,000....that's six zeros for goodness sake.

[catrancher]

Was thinking about seeing it but the reviews have been lukewarm at best. May have to rethink based on all this. I had hopes for it to be a good one but sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Tom (... back to the books.)

[Clarkkent]

I wonder if the reason for this is that most people expect a Disney film to be reasonably 'nice and fluffy'. From the trailers I've seen there's lots of fighting and big scary monsters (woohoo!!) which I assume most parents would not take their 5 year old children to??

If Disney were expecting it to be a huge success perhaps they could have marketed the film via a different distribution company, as more of an adult film rather than one suitable for children.

[Skywatcher]

If this is the cost of movies the world has gone stark staring mad. Think how much good could have been done in the owrld with the budget from this one picture alone

Just crazy