Walt Disney Pictures expects to book a great loss on the Barsoomian war movie in its second fiscal quarter, placing the film in the Hollywood's all-time biggest money-losers.
- Mar 20, 2012
AceShowbiz - "John Carter" is close to become a movie that suffers the biggest box office flop of all time. On Monday, March 19, Walt Disney Pictures announced that it expects to lose $200 million on the mega-budgeted Barsomian epic movie, which cost an estimated $350 million to produce.
"In light of the theatrical performance of 'John Carter' ($184 million global box office), we expect the film to generate an operating loss of approximately $200 million during our second fiscal quarter ending March 31," so the studio stated. "As a result, our current expectation is that the Studio segment will have an operating loss between $80 and $120 million for the second quarter."
Weighing in on the issue, president of the box-office division of Hollywood.com, Paul Dergarabedian, said that "John Carter" is likely to be placed in the Hollywood's all-time biggest money-losers. "Unfortunately for 'John Carter', the story became all about this massive budget," he said, as quoted by Los Angeles Times. "The movie will take one of the biggest losses in recent memory."
Another expert, Harold Vogel, who is the president of Vogel Capital Management said, "This is a little unpleasant episode or scratch." He added, "Disney is so much larger than all of this, they can easily absorb the loss and go on and have many, many good years in the future. It's the equivalent of a ding on the side of your car. You wish it didn't happen. But at the end of the day, the car drives fine."
Though suffering a great loss from the Taylor Kitsch-starring movie, Disney is still optimistic to collect a massive gross from its other upcoming releases. "As we look forward to the second half of the year, we are excited about the upcoming releases of 'The Avengers' and 'Brave', which we believe have tremendous potential to drive value for the Studio and the rest of the company," the studio hoped.
Receiving mixed reviews from critics, "John Carter" grossed a so-so $30.1 million domestically on its opening weekend. In its second week since it was released in the U.S. on March 9, the Andrew Stanton-directed film collected only $13.5 million, dropping 55|percent| from the prior week.
