How does the “Monday morning after” media buzz over Battleship’s “bomb” compare to what John Carter endured?
One of the things that’s of interest under the general framework of what I’m looking at with “Hollywood vs Mars” is to compare the advance media narrative for John Carter (“epic folly/epic fail is inevitable”) with the narrative that preceded the release of Battleship (pretty similar but less of it) , plus the “Monday morning after” coverage Battleship is receiving vs what John Carter received, and finally to compare the manner in which Comcast/Universal handles the announcement of a write-down compared to how Disney handled the same even with John Carter.
As most people know by now, Battleship opened with $9m on Friday and in the Sunday write-ups (which include an estimate for Sunday) they had it at 25.4M for the weekend; then this morning Reuters is reporting it at $23.4M (could be their error, as everyone posts off of Box Office Mojo and BOM still has it at 25.4m with Sunday an estimate).
For comparison, John Carter opened with $9.8m on Friday, did $30.2M for the weekend, and did $65M in foreign business on its opening weekend. Battleship was released well in advance in foreign territories and is near the end of its foreign run, at a bit more then $215m – similar to John Carter.
As for cost — the announced cost of Battleship is 209M and marketing costs are said to be the same as for John Carter – $100m.
So — looking purely at the numbers, the analysis would look like this:
So far, the only article I’ve found which discusses the level of a possible writedown for Battleship is a Reuters piece:
Battleship Bomb May Hit Studio’s Profits: Analysts
(Reuters) – “Battleship,” Universal Picture’s big budget science fiction film, is likely to dent the studio’s profits after it opened with lower than forecast ticket sales, according to analysts.
The film, which Comcast unit Universal has said cost $209 million to produce, generated $23.4 million in ticket sales at theaters in the U.S. and Canada during its opening weekend, according to figures compiled by Hollywood.com.
It had been projected by tracking services used by Hollywood studios to have ticket sales of between $35 million and $40 million.
The movie, which stars Liam Neeson and the singer Rihanna, finished the weekend second to Walt Disney’s superhero blockbuster “The Avengers,” which led the box office for the third weekend with $55.1 million in ticket sales.
“It is not quite the epic disaster of ‘John Carter,’ but this will put a dent in Comcast’s quarter,” said Matthew Harrigan of Wunderlich Securities, who follows Comcast. He did not quantify how much he expected the film to lose.
“John Carter,” which sold $30.2 million during its opening weekend in March, saddled Disney with a $200 million loss, the company said. That film cost more than $250 million to produce.
Based on the “John Carter” performance, Universal will lose $100 million to $200 million, estimates Michael Morris of Davenport & Co., who does not follow Comcast, but follows Disney, News Corp. and Time Warner, which also have studio units.
In comparing the studio loss to be suffered — one major difference is that in the case of John Carter, Disney was both the investing entity (producer) and the distributing entity, whereas in the case of Battleship, Hasbro was involved in the production and has shouldered some of the production investment — meanwhile Universal can be sure to be charging something in the range of 30% of Distributor Gross (figure 45% of Box Office Gross in round figures) to the production, against which it only has to recoup, presumably, the P and A budget of $100M or thereabouts as far as the Distribution piece goes. What Universal’s position in the production investment is — I’m not sure yet, haven’t looked that closely into it. If anyone has info on this, please share in the comments section.
NOTE: I will add to this as more articles become available. Obviously, the point of this is to see whether or not the “schadenfreude” factor with John Carter was elevated in some peculiar way — or whether another film with about the same P and L profile gets the same treatment. Also, it will be interesting to watch how Comcast/Universal handle the issue of reporting a writedown — when will they report it; how much; how will it be framed.
UPDATE: Hollywood Reporter has an article out which mentions a write-down possibility, although it doesn’t attach a number to it. It quote Universal’s President of Distribution Nikki Rocco as follows:
“It is obviously a disappointment, but we will move on. And we have Memorial Day coming up,” Universal president of domestic distribution Nikki Rocco said. “The studio has a picture that already has a quarter of a million dollars in the bank, and it won’t die at $25.3 million domestically. We all know that.”
Here’s the full THR article: Box Office Report
17 comments
As for Battleship, I can’t help but feel this failure is good for the industry and the art form. To me it represents a breaking point, perhaps meaning (among other things) that banking on name recognition and big VFX won’t always guarantee success, that audiences are a little more discerning than they get credit for, and that people were more attached to the Transformers ‘idea’ & characters than in copycat VFX/Design. It was so obviously chasing the Michael Bay aesthetic that Peter Berg should be a little embarrassed he didn’t try his own thing instead. That the film was steamrolled by a superior one has to be good for megabudget cinema on some level.
The triumph of The AVENGERS is one of idealistic characters, cleanly-directed action, and (like Avatar) re-affirms that successful tentpoles can be both gigantic and intelligent, full of heart and real fun along with the sound/fury.
One can hope that the failure of Battleship means we’ll get a little more of that.
In contrast, I fear the failure of Disney John Carter will curtail executive trust in singular artists on a grand scale, and it will be a long time before someone gets such an unfettered chance at a risky passion project.
With luck, though, these consecutive Kitsch “reluctant hero” failures will help put that archetype in it’s place. It’s good to know the next two big cinema heroes coming our way are openly dedicated to justice and understand that with great power comes great responsibility.
seventhid,
It would have helped, but $500M sounds a little steep. Both good and bad movies have to deliver in the Action department to get up there. Whether or not you thought the movie was well made, the set-pieces are short and modest in scale —- the Action/VFX spectacle simply doesn’t reach the bar of ‘must-see’ visuals that helped to drive the box office of films like Avatar, Transformers (1-3), or the Avengers.
I think the main difference is that now there would be pallets of ‘Disney John Carter’ merchandise sitting next to the pallets of ‘Tron:Legacy’ and ‘Prince of PErsia’ merchandise in the Disney warehouse of over selling.
On some level, they knew the film they were about to release was not going to be a hit, and wisely chose not to throw good money after bad.
I say ‘wisely’ for their sakes, though, not mine. I think it’s a real bummer, because even though I don’t like the film, I’d most definitely have bought all the toys.
PacRim in a nutshell is giant monsters fighting giant piloted robots. It’s unclear yet whether these will be daikaiju sized (EG Godzilla) or something on a smaller scale.
But even on the small end these monsters (and by extension the robots) will be at least 25 ft-40 ft tall — though the most recent statements on size lean towards daikaiju scale which generally begins at around 40 m, 131 feet, and goes up from there (IE Godzilla in the older movies is 50 meters, 164 ft, tall).
Don Kraar wrote —
“The apparent failure of BATTLESHIP is not entirely surprising. It’s just possible that the public is getting tired of movies based on theme park rides, board games, & computer games. ”
Or, maybe from the previews it looked just like “Battle Los Angeles” or “Transformers” or even “Skyline.” Alien invasions are becoming a bit tiresome. Which does not bode well for del Toro’s “Pacific Rim” (although I confess to not knowing anything of that film’s storyline).
The apparent failure of BATTLESHIP is not entirely surprising. It’s just possible that the public is getting tired of movies based on theme park rides, board games, & computer games. Ultimately, the story is the star. JOHN CARTER did have a story, even if I am not really satisfied with the way it was told. The success of THE HUNGER GAMES & THE AVENGERS is due to the fact that they were “pre-sold” properties. There was a huge built in audience for them. By comparison, the audience that was aware of BATTLESHIP was small. In any case, the audience that was aware of JOHN CARTER was simply infinitesimal . The only way that could have been changed was an intelligent marketing campaign. Frankly, I do not believe that the film that Andrew Stanton could have been a hit. However, it was just possible that it could have returned most, if not all, of its original investment. It seems obvious that Richard Ross & Co. did not think that it was worth the effort, especially since it was a project inititated by the previous management.
Peter Smith wrote —
“Hey Stanton! Roland Emmerich just called..and he’s stunned at how poorly you and the scriptwriters botched the job by reusing queues from his ’94 science fiction epic…with five times the budget!!”
But … but … I thought no one was allowed to criticize Stanton on this website! I am so confused ….
Seriously, though, a request for elaboration on the Stanton criticism. I ain’t seen “Stargate” since I guess it came out (or at least on video). Which queues would you be referring to? Not planning on screaming “but ERB was there first!” Merely curious (and by curious I mean wanting to fill in the hole in my rapidly diminishing memory).
So I gave it a shot and saw “John Carter” for the second time. Nothing changed my initial disappointment. God awful script, awful acting and awful directing. “Hey Stanton! Roland Emmerich just called..and he’s stunned at how poorly you and the scriptwriters botched the job by reusing queues from his ’94 science fiction epic…with five times the budget!!”
You can state repeatedly that Disney’s marketing was a disaster [for not helping to babysit this movie into a commerical success), and you can ruminate why certain decisions were made, but fact is decisions were made, and ALL of them were bad ones. Why? Incompetence or ignorance, take your pick…
I haven’t seen Battleship yet, and I’m quite reluctant given Taylor Kitsch poor performance in “John Carter”. I have seen “The Avengers” though, and it was smashing :-), highly recommended! Then again, it’s Joss Whedon, a more competent and experienced director.
I wonder how things might have been different if JOHN CARTER had all the advertizing, cross promotion, and merchandizing just like BATTLESHIP or THE AVENGERS!
I think that JC could have gotten to at least the $500 million level.
I find it hard to believe that Disney spent $100 million in advertizing on JC, $50 million maybe.
How do you add an avatar here?
Also I would have to say that Universal’s $100 million dollars looked like it went a lot further than Disney’s $100 million. Battleship is everywhere, even if people didn’t see the movie, I assume they knew it was out (or coming out soon).
MCR wrote
Actually I do because what he said was transparently stupid and exposed him far worse than if he had done the right thing and had the studio shoulder some of the blame. What I’m suggesting he should have done would not only have been the “right thing” — it would have been more adroit politically. I mean …all I’m saying is — be slightly real and acknowledge there are many ingredients to a successful film release, not just the film itself, and sometimes all those elements don’t come together as well as needed. MCR — this is a “the emperor has no clothes” moment and Ross sat up there and said he had beautiful clothes, it was Stanton who didn’t, and everybody in Hollywood over the age of 7 knew he was dodging responsibility. It was that transparent.
Now I’m sounding as dismissive of Ross as you are of Stanton. In truth I would like to hear his side of it and who knows, maybe I would see something I don’t see now. But seriously, I (or any number of other people) could have written him a much better statement on the back of a napkin….at a minimum he was being poorly, poorly advised.
MCR again:
Agreed. Just one more rollover, that’s all. One of many. Poor Walt.
Universal has got more sense than to go quoting figures which are “commercial in confidence “.
Battleship had entertainment, heart and heroism to spare. It wasn’t pretending to be a groundbreaking film, but I did find it to be a solid bit of summer fun.
Went to see Battleship this weekend, felt like I should have waited for it to come to Redbox (with a free rental code).
Dotar Sojat wrote:
“knowing ALL of this, Ross blames it all on the film itself, saying Andrew Stanton and the film failed to connect with audiences when in fact it was Disney marketing that failed to connect with audiences.”
OK do you really think Rich Ross was going to blame the marketing people? People he hired for the job? No because that would make him look like an idiot. And being the chairman of a major movie studio you can’t look foolish so it was easier ot say the movie just failed to connect.
“And Walt Disney — guarantee — rolled in his grave when these guys put out these statements.”
Well I’m sure poor Walt has been rolling in his grave for years now. The people running Disney have forgotten both his risk taking and genius and you see the result. Bad movies and bad decisions.
Kenneth Jordan …. Here is what Ross said at the equivalent time. This statement came on Sunday night March 11 after the March 9 release (its different from the 200m writedown statement, which came on March 19, the following Monday).
What’s astonishing to me about that is that right from the get-go, knowing that Disney had received an avalanche of criticism for it’s lame marketing, and also knowing for months (from test screenings) that audiences who saw the movie actually liked it, and knowing the same thing from the IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes audience rating — knowing ALL of this, Ross blames it all on the film itself, saying Andrew Stanton and the film failed to connect with audiences when in fact it was Disney marketing that failed to connect with audiences.
This is not splitting hairs. Any studio chief knows that the opening weekend numbers are 95% dependent on the marketing — word of mouth hasn’t had time to have an affect. And if you have a film that is testing well with audiences as John Carter did — but faring poorly on opening weekend — then there’s only one explanation: the Marketing sucked. Yet he couldn’t even hint at something like that …. couldn’t say “sometimes it’s hard to find the right way to present a film to audiences, and it takes the film to sell itself. We’re hoping that’s what John Carter does — audience reactons are good, we’ll see what happens.” That is more like what Rocco said and is a way to avoid pinning it all on the film-maker when everyone in town knows the greater share of the blame goes to the studio. But neither Ross in that statement and the 19 March statement, nor Iger in his recent interviews … is willing to do anything other than throw Stanton and the film-makers completely under the bus. Dick Cook never would have done that. And Walt Disney — guarantee — rolled in his grave when these guys put out these statements.
Mr. Rocco’s press release on Battleship is certainly much more businesslike and prudent than Mr. Ross’s press release on John Carter. No studio ceo should be issuing press releases, like Mr. Ross did, giving potential viewers the subliminal message to not go see one of the studio’s multi-million dollars movies that’s only been in distribution for 10 days! Likely cost Disney significant millions on John Carter.
Uni’s Nikki Rocco is correct, it won’t die at that. You have Memorial Day coming which is a patriotic holiday besides the first picnics of summer, etc. and if the word about the vets in the film gets out more widely, it could do OK this weekend and The Avengers should be done “sucking the air out of the box office.” If their smart, they planned some promotion, which Disney didn’t, for after the first weekend. I saw the movie Friday and I was pleasantly surprised… once again the critics failed to get a film in my book. I won’t see it a bazillion times like John Carter, but I will probably get the DVD.