The Wrap: “Rich Ross and the John Carter Debacle”
I can’t think of a similar announcement for a single movie in recent history. In fact, most studios try to bury losses for individual pictures in their financial statements. And they always argue that long-tail revenue streams mitigate a weak box office.
Everyone at the Walt Disney Company, studio chief Rich Ross most of all, had been braced for bad news around “John Carter.”
But few of those observing the company were expecting the swift doomsday sentence handed out by Disney on Monday, that the science fiction tale would lose $200 million, making it one of the biggest financial flops in movie history.
Two hundred million? That is a breathtaking sum, a humdinger, a gobsmacker.
I can’t think of a similar announcement for a single movie in recent history. In fact, most studios try to bury losses for individual pictures in their financial statements. And they always argue that long-tail revenue streams mitigate a weak box office.
Not on this one.