Josue Sanchez on “Why they should make a John Carter Sequel”
by Josue Sanchez
If there is an infamous movie to talk about from 2012 so far, it would have to be “John Carter.” The reviews seemed extremely opposite ended. If you read some of the critics’ reviews, you will find in some cases a curiously cruel animosity by some. Conversely, there is a marveled appreciation for it by others.
If you read the forums and Twitter comments accompanied by the hashtag #JohnCarter, you will discover a great deal of the comments are mostly praise. If you read the reviews from people who bought the movie at Amazon
Then, there is the supposed loss of hundreds of millions of dollars by Disney. I’m wondering when someone is going to stop repeating those old totals, and find updated numbers that actually reflect “John Carter’s” financial run. Well, since no one else is doing it, here are some estimates I found online.
According to Box Office Mojo, the film’s budget was $250 million (although other sites claim it cost even more to make). Also, some other sites insist Disney spent $100 million promoting the movie, which I highly doubt. But let’s image this is true. At this point, the movie needed to make at least $350 million to break even.
5 comments
I would be inclined to say the same thing based on what I saw. The thing is, I live in LA and I bet you live in or near a major city. There are lots of people from places other than LA, NY, or Chicago who really claim to have never seen a billboard and hardly seen a tv ad prior to the release. These are just anecdotal, but are puzzling.
Disney failed to get the “awareness” numbers higher than the mid 60’s which is very unusual for a film of this type. It should have been high 80’s or low 90’s by opening day. One theory is that the title was so forgettable that ads just didn’t “stick”.
Bob Iger in an interview on Bloomberg TV on May 8 says that he was very worried about John Carter and that as a result “we gave it the promotion that it deserved”.
The $200 million loss is accurate. Disney only gets about half of the $282 million box office. The rest goes to the theatres and others in the distribution chain.
There is absolutely no reason to think Disney did not spend $100 million on advertising this product. I saw a ton of billboards and commercials for it.
I don’t think it can break even but I do think it can sell enough to make a compelling case for a sequel if the sequel is produced at the right price.
And “break-even” is always different from “enough to green light a sequel”. There are various “force multiplier” type things that come into play when you build a franchise, especially Disney with all its other ways of generating revenue off of IP. And there is the residual library value of the property which doesn’t show up in a P and L statement but is the underlying asset that can be sold, or look good on a balance sheet, for years to come.
So while I don’t think JC has a chance of breaking even — the game is still on because it can definitely reach “sequel lift-off point”….
Do you think that John Carter has any chance to break even? The dvd and blu-ray sales were strong the first week, but the movie went down to fifth place on the second. It seems to do reasonably well in France, it’s currently number one in all the big stores. Well, not in the Disney store mind you, they don’t sell the dvd at all, and the big push is on selling Amazing Spider-Man stuff.
Is there any data as far as worldwide home video sales are concerned?
Add to that there is no merchandising to buy to help fill the gap. That seems at first glance an impossible mission. And yet it will probably the only thing Disney’s accountants will look at now…
Yeah, I know his numbers don’t add up but his heart’s in the right place and JC gets so much unfair negativity, might as well spread this nice heartfelt effort at positivity around a bit too.