The Difference Between a $250M Budget and a $150M Budget: John Carter vs Total Recall Opening Weekends
Deadline Hollywood’s Report Today on Total Recall’s $26M Opening Weekend
Creeping in softly to begin with, Total Recall (3,601 theaters) “performed in line with tracking and expectations,” Sony said of its $26.0M opening. Actually, the studio had expected more: $28M-$30M. Problem is, as rival studios pointed out, this weekend’s take won’t be enough to make up the pic’s $150M cost unless it hits big overseas. There, the film opened #1 in India, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand and took in $6.2M from 12 markets. In North America, the CinemaScore was only a ‘C+’ which doesn’t bode well for word of mouth. Exit polling showed 58% of the opening weekend audience was male and 42% was female; 47% was under age 30 and 53% was 30 and over.
Deadline Hollywood’s Report on March 11th on John Carter’s $30.2M Opening Weekend
Disney’s 3D sci-fi newcomer John Carter finished a feeble #2 considering its whopping $250+M cost. Friday’s domestic box office numbers for director Andrew Stanton’s actioner came in even weaker than predicted but rival studios tell me the loincloth epic experienced an unexpected double-digit bounce on Saturday. Clearly word of mouth, like the ‘B+’ CinemaScore from audiences, is helping although reviews were decidedly mixed. Only Monday actuals will confirm whether Disney got its “miracle” and John Carter‘s North American box office opening this weekend had a ’3? in front of it. But that still means a massive $100+M writeoff for the parent company if this dismal opening affects the new pic’s international fortunes. The studio’s Prince of Persia, for instance, opened similarly weak in North America, then made up its domestic deficit overseas. Disney made a gigantic worldwide day-and-date push for John Carter and says Russia was especially ”very strong”. “We have some good starts in Europe, with some softer than we hoped. A few Asian territories are strong where this type of film plays well,” an exec tells me.
To summarize: this flop is the result of a studio trying to indulge Pixar… Of an arrogant director who ignored everybody’s warnings that he was making a film too faithful to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s first novel in the Barsoom series “A Princess of Mars”… Of the failure of Dick Cook, and Rich Ross, and Bob Iger to rein in Stanton’s excessive ego or pull the plug on the movie’s bloated budget … Of really rotten marketing that failed to explain the significant or scope of the film’s Civil War-to-Mars story and character arcs and instead made the 3D movie look way as generic as its eventual title… Disagree all you want, but Hollywood is telling me that competent marketing could have drawn in women with the love story, or attracted younger males who weren’t fanboys of the source material. Instead the campaign was as rigid and confusing as the movie itself, not to mention that ’Before Star Wars, Before Avatar‘ tag line should have come at the start and not at the finish. But even more I think John Carter is a product of mogul wuss-ism as much as it is misplaced talent worship. More detail to come.
Thanks to Kevin Sanderson for pointing this out.
9 comments
OK, alright, Dotar and MCR… 🙂
I purchased APOM when it was re-released… the Library of America version. I’ve been holding off for when I have more down time, but I will re-read it. It’s been a long, long time.
Kevin — I’m with MCR about going back and re-ceading APOM and the others. I did it after my third viewing of the movie, and it really helped me “get” a few things. It negatively affected my next viewing of the movie (because it made me relate everything onscreen to the book), but then it also let me just let go and start enjoying the movie for itself after I’d had that viewing. Now I’ve got both..and can enjoy both.
Kevin Sanderson wrote:
“I couldn’t remember much of anything about what I had read other than the characters (mostly Dejah and Tars) since it was so long ago, but the movie had the spirit I remembered and the wonderful Tharks.”
Please Kevin go back and reread them! This movie captured none of the spirit of the books. And the Tharks? They got the short end of the stick really. There was no development to them, no discovering of their history or their customs. That was all sacrificed by Stanton to make room for his tired macguffins and bad Thern concepts.
“What this really illustrates is that for those folks who thought it should’ve been made for $150 Million, it still, because of lousy marketing, wouldn’t have done well and would get negative press coverage, though not as heavily as a blockbuster.”
Possibly but at a 150 million the film might have been more considered if not a blockbuster then not a huge bomb either. As for the negative press most of that was about the budget and Stanton going out of control with it. If the film had cost less then there would not have been that issue.
MCR, Nikki was going on what people were telling her. Obviously, the people telling her thought it should have been totally unfaithful and made more palatable or hip for today’s audience… probably setting it in the future and making it all dark and evil like every other sci-fi film that comes out. I remember some dark sci-fi that I read when I was young (The Black Cloud) but mostly the ones that stuck with me had an element of fun like John Carter… the best in my humble opinion being Martians Go Home. I can’t remember everything about them (I’m terrible with song lyrics, too), but I remember mostly the pleasure they brought me. Probably why John Carter worked for me. I couldn’t remember much of anything about what I had read other than the characters (mostly Dejah and Tars) since it was so long ago, but the movie had the spirit I remembered and the wonderful Tharks.
What this really illustrates is that for those folks who thought it should’ve been made for $150 Million, it still, because of lousy marketing, wouldn’t have done well and would get negative press coverage, though not as heavily as a blockbuster.
“And I honestly don’t know where the “big ego” stuff about Stanton comes from. Ok, I don’t know the guy personally, and neither does the writer of that article, but Stanton never comes over as a huge ego. Quite the opposite, actually.”
Hold the phone. You’re joking right? The man who said that Disney fears him and wants to keep him happy? That he wouldn’t know what to do with 5 million dollars? That said there was no ERB fans and no one would care if he “mucks” with the book to suit his needs? Yeah he has no ego. I guess Stanton thinks every film studio fears him and everyone else. Honestly that may be the only thing the writer of this piece did get right-and it was that ego that pretty much resulted in John Carter turning out the way it did.
Seems pretty obvious from a few comments made in this article that the guy either hasn’t seen John Carter or hasn’t read the source material. To attack with such bravado and not know what you’re talking about just irritates me to not end. And I honestly don’t know where the “big ego” stuff about Stanton comes from. Ok, I don’t know the guy personally, and neither does the writer of that article, but Stanton never comes over as a huge ego. Quite the opposite, actually.
Thanks to the brutal summer temps that are currently afflicting my state and wanting to avoid the dreaded “swamp ass” I elected to confine my activities
to the indoors and watched a couple of movies this weekend.
Total Recall was a total suckfest, way worse then JC or even the first Total
Recall with “Arnie”.
I watched Brave afterwards and enjoyed it way more.
Yes, MCR, when I got to that “film too faithful” line I had to give out a big “WHAT!?”
I finally remembered to ask a friend from church (he’s a big time action movie addict) if he, his wife and two teenage boys had seen DJC, he said they had, he kinda liked it, and that his wife, a big fan of ERB’s stories, loved it. He commented the marketing was off the mark. Disney, get your act together.
“Of an arrogant director who ignored everybody’s warnings that he was making a film too faithful to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s first novel in the Barsoom series “A Princess of Mars”…
Good to know Nikki Finke is as illiterate as she is arrogant herself. Yeah if this film is “too faithful” then she needs to really look up the term or possibly read a book. Beyond that I don’t have anything else to comment on. I’m sure it will be like Battleship where no one comments much on Total Recall’s poor opening as they move on to the next film they’re sure will fail.