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Disney‘s $200M write down for John Carter appears to be the biggest loss to date for a single film — exceeding the inflation-adjusted $147M deficit from Cutthroat Island, the 1995 film that starred Geena Davis and proved to be the last straw for Carolco Pictures which went out of business. But investors are just beginning to wrap their minds around how serious the debacle is for Disney. The loss far exceeds analyst forecasts of about $100M to $150M. 
On Wednesday, Janney Capital Markets analyst Tony Wible said that “the impairment may not be as bad as feared”: He estimated $53M, with $180M only in a “worst case scenario.” Miller Tabak & Co analyst David Joyce also was surprised by Disney’s new figures. He expected the Studio unit to lose about $37M in the current quarter; Disney now says the loss could go as high as $120M. Joyce just shaved 2 cents off his earnings forecast for the fiscal year that ends in September, bringing it down to $2.99. While the Street is clearly disappointed, it isn’t stunned. Disney shares are down less than 1% in after-hours trading. At the end of the day, the Studio just accounts for 16% of the company’s revenues and 7% of its profits. Proving that hope springs eternal, Joyce says he believes “investors will look forward to the summer franchise releases” which include The Avengers and Pixar’s Brave. But there’s a larger lesson that could color how people look at future box office disappointments: “John Carter is a great example of how there’s no more safety net from DVD sales,” says BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield. “Failed theatrical movies increasingly don’t sell at all in the DVD market.”
Investors Assess The Damage From Disney’s ‘John Carter’ Debacle
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!
As any profit participant will tell you, the most succesful movies “lose” tons of money. By comparison, this movie should have lost a couple billion dollars.
The only profit participants that will tell you that are ones with horrible representatives.
Why didn’t they call it
John Carter Warlord of Mars
like it was supposed to be
how is one to know John carter isn’t a bus driver
I agree! John Carter is the dullest title I’ve ever heard. Totally melba toast.
So true. Even “A Princess of Mars” would have been a better choice than simply “John Carter.” It seems like they were falling all over themselves in marketing and making this film. Such a shame. I haven’t seen it yet, but want to. Guess I’d better hurry.
Because Disney’s other big bomb, Mars Needs Moms, scared an exec from using the Mars name again….brilliant!
Well it shows Disney is not in the publics eye with love anymore.In fact this house will not allow any Disney movies or items. They proven how stupid they are! Love it-not as smart as they thaught they were.. LOVE IT
Disney’s tent pole strategy isn’t just rumored to fail – it’s proven.
The only issue worth analyzing is whether this makes Taylor Kitcsh more gritty or less gritty.
Come on, can we at least wait until the film opens in all the international markets before we declare this film dead?
Disney’s Avengers may soften the blow on this one. It WILL open BIG. VERY big.
Uhhh…. Disney just declared it dead.
Seriously, man. Just stop. Disney just sent out a memo stating how dead it is. Can’t you just accept reality?
The first author in this thread believes that Disney might be jumping to conclusions. Even so, The Avengers might help Disney, but that might not be the case because they used the Super Bowl money on the flop we are talking about, not Avengers or Brave.
And let’s not forget about Mars Needs Moms… #DISNEYSUCKS
Why is everyone taking so much glee in John Carter’s failure? It’s not like it’s a terrible film that should have never been made. Disney took a gamble on adapting an old classic novel and unfortunately failed financially. Enjoy your creatively shallow “reboots” of films less than 25 years old with pre-established brand recognition.
Because the movie epitomizes Hollywood excess. This was a problem production. Maybe it’s because in a crap economy when so many are struggling people are annoyed to see so much money maybe as much as $350 million or more wasted? I personally find it absurd.
I don’t think it was a terrible movie at all. I thought it was supremely flawed and Kitsch was way miscast as the leading man. The marketing didn’t do it any favors and made it look bad and confusing.
I understand this was a labor of love to Stanton. At the Google conference he called the books his “Harry Potter.” But saying that means nothing to the kids today that have read Harry Potter. And the people that have read John Carter of Mars are most likely older people that don’t go to the movies.
But I think it’s now time for tentpoles to get reigned in. And studios need to try and reign in the big directors though I doubt Nolan, Cameron, or Ridley Scott will ever be on that list.
I know Lone Ranger for instance is the Pirates team, but even that being a fact, making a LONE RANGER movie even for a lower budget of $215 million instead of $250 million is absurd. If you want to make it that bad why not make it for say $150 million or even less?
In an age where micro-budgeted films with multi-million dollar marketing are becoming huge hits, I think it is time for big time directors to prove themselves again and prove why they should command gigantic budgets again.
You have good points and bad points. There’s no reason to chastise Disney for spending $350M “in a crap economy” — that money employed people. But yes, this kind of budget doesn’t make sense when found footage films are so successful.
You are missing the point. The movie going way over budget didn’t give more people jobs. It went over budget because of the expensive reshoots. But when you have a loss like this it could cause more people to lose their jobs.
However because of this debacle, there is going to be more oversight and scrutiny of projects like this. We will see less directors be given big opportunities like John Carter and studios will go to more of these micro-budget movies without big names and made on the cheap. Someone like Stanton might not get a project like this again despite his track record.
It could also discourage Hollywood from adapting quality sci-fi literature and material.
But I think it goes to show, you spend $350 million or more on something like this and you end up with a reported $200 million windfall.
Thanks for bestowing such knowledge, oh hollywood god. Take it easy on the rants, ya?
The Lone Ranger is going to make bucketloads. I bet it will be a worse movie than John Carter, but it is a relatively easy sell due to Depp and brand recognition.
The problem with Blockbuster movie making is not budgets, it is that 90% of the time, quality is secondary to marketability.
Agreed! It seems that this was just mis marketed. I would have been much more interested had I known it was based on a 100yr old sci-fi novel about the civil war.
It was?? now John Carter sounds awesome. Equally so when someone above mentioned the full title. I’m going to go track down the books and read it now.
See, I kind of new it was a remake, but I thought it was a remake of an old movie, not a sci-fi book, and I hadn’t a clue what it was about other than the title made me think of John Connor and terminator which made me laugh.
You really should read “A Princess of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs. That’s the first book in the John Carter series, and it’s considered a seminal work of sci-fi/fantasy, even though it’s not technically science fiction.
Great books.
A lot of people just root for failure. It’s not at all a bad film…I’ll take it over yet another Spiderman iteration and GI Joe movie, that’s for sure.
It’s not about hating or rooting for failure. The backstory: Disney used to be a real movie studio, a studio that hired writers and directors to tell stories and released a varied slate of movies. Under Ross, they have essentially closed their doors for business to the creative community in favor of making two or three “movies” a year — “movies” which are 300M dollar campaigns designed to tie into other Disney properties — figurines and kid’s books and theme park rides.
So, yeah, when you’re a writer and director and one of the major players essentially gives you the middle finger and says with great pride “We’re not in the business of telling stories, we’re in the business of selling tickets to our theme parks and plastic toys and if your name’s not Stanton or Bruckheimer don’t bother coming onto our lot,” then yeah, creative people are happy when that plan doesn’t work out so well. When a plan like that doesn’t work, sure it’s painful now but in the long-term it’s a good thing for the long-term health of the industry. JOHN CARTER is a market correction that needed to happen.
And sure, other studios like franchises and merchandizing, but they also on occasion MAKE ACTUAL MOVIES on the side. Disney does not.
They made PROM. That wasn’t a $300M campaign.
Amen! I was at DIC (part of Disney in the 90′s) when Disney was firing writers and hiring marketing people in their places. The writer is rarely respected in this town, but when will they realize that movies all start with a story, and that’s what most people pay to see.
And I’m not saying that John Carter didn’t have a good story (I haven’t seen it nor have I read the book). But it was marketed terribly! From the trailer, it didn’t give any idea of the story. Just overly CGI’d visuals and action scenes – which they think will wow the audience. But please… people are usually smarter than that. Give us a good story and we’ll pay to come see it.
You are so right. Unfortunately, it was far too long, too gimmicky, and was a little too close to the heels of Avatar to be fresh, new, and appealing.
As a Disney shareholder, I would recommend withholding all bonuses to the entire upper management team for the entire 2012 year regardless of their stature in the company. When one of us fails, the entire team fails.Also, withhold all bonuses in 2012 to all feature film production and advertising executives. They green lighted the project and must bear the consequences of their action. They also need to reassess the notion of making films that cost in excess of 100 million dollars including advertising.
JHK, can we also include marketing reps in the punitive measures? John Carter has its flaws, to be sure, but I think most reasonable people can agree that the early marketing for this movie was wretched and probably contributed to a dismal first weekend.
As a Disney stockholder for over 31 years, I’d like to see Disney get out of the movie business unless it pertains to franchises, rely on the proven NOT the unproven, let Warners, or Paramount waste their money on things like this. Disney needs to stick with sequels of Pirates of the Caribbean, TRON, remake movies that made money before. DON ‘T TAKE CHANCES when it comes to films, leave the action movies to Marvel. Disney as a movie studio doesn’t need to make movies; they already have proven brands like Marvel, Pixar, ever see a Pixar movie lose money?
If they want to make movies, make those cheap Vancouver, B.C. filmed Disney Channel movies and release them, forget about all these big budget movies.
Fortunately the movie studio is just a very small part of a much bigger company.
Right on, Lsb. Those franchises you love that have padded earnings for years–they were all created in a vacuum with a time machine. PIRATES/CARIBBEAN, TRON, all the Pixar movies–those franchises were all sure things coming out of the gate, right?
Get real. Invest in something else if you can’t stomach creative risks…it’s like you have forgotten what company you have invested in.
“DON ‘T TAKE CHANCES when it comes to films”
Spoken like someone who has no business owning stock in an entertainment company.
Disney doesn’t need to make films look at the company as a whole, the studio accounts for a small, very small part of the company as a whole. That’s why this really isn’t going to affect it that much. Except in Hollywood. The really money makers of Disney are NOT the studio. Disney has done very well and will continue to do so, they just need to rely on the creative teams at Marvel and Pixar, and NOT the namesake studio. This is just a blip. This spring and summer they’ll have the real money makers Pixar and Marvel.
Wow… This is the essence of Wall Street. Don’t risk on new things. Count on things that’ll get stale within a year? Already stale? Revive an older franchise!
The plan is perfect! Money will be made! *EVERYONE* will be happy!…. *facepalm*
(Reality check: We need new material. If you cannot tolerate the idea of creative risk, you really should not invest in media companies.)
I agree leave movies to Marvel And Pixar. They are great movie makers !
The marketing was terrible. If I had not read the article in The New Yorker about the director’s struggle to get the film made, and if I had only seen the trailers, I would not have wanted to see the movie. I thought it was a really enjoyable film, but at the end of the day that wasn’t clear in the advertising. The scope and grandeur of the work, not to mention the unique humor, was not at all conveyed to the public through the previews that were issued. This was not the filmmakers at fault, it was top of studio decisions, based on gross misperceptions of the intelligence of the audience, which have turned John Carter into a bomb instead of a blockbuster.
Yeah but Andrew Stanton was involved in the marketing and shot down a lot of their proposals. He didn’t let them properly tell audiences what the movie was about so he could maintain the secrecy. Blew up in his face though because no one cared. He was the one that dropped the ball, not the marketing team.
This is sad, because Finding Nemo is a really great, charming film. Because I have a small child, I’ve seen the movie about 100 times, and I see something new in it each time.
I don’t want studios to blow $250 million on Sequel 2,145,023 created by Artificial Movie Food Director Clone 15A, but I would like to see people like Stanton have the money and freedom to make big, unusual movies.
Agreed! You know, I had no idea Bryan Cranston was in the film? Nor did I know that the film was set in the Civil War era. Why wasn’t any of that in the trailer? Why didn’t they at least feature Bryan Cranston instead of ONLY ‘who-ever-that-guy-was’ who played John Carter and a boat load of CGI’d aliens???
1. Didn’t appeal to John Carter fanboys because it was made too family friendly and mass market fluffy.
2. Didn’t appeal to the mass market because most people have never heard of it.
3. Had an unknown in the leading role, and no recognizable supporting cast members.
4. Couldn’t tell what the story was, if any, from the commercials.
And people wonder why it failed…SMH.
Bryan Cranston is recognizable. But you wouldn’t have known he was in the movie from the trailer or any of the marketing…
I felt like there wasn’t enough publicity about this movie that got people to come to the theatres.. not the right kind.. and i never knew that it was from the same guy who wrote tarzan back in the 20s.. i wonder some times if studios or production companies would ever let a sequel be more popular than the first. That could be the case here if they made the sequel and made it good with better marketing. I thought the movie was intriguing. I liked it when the action took place on mars.. when it was on earth.. not so much.
I have to wonder if Disney didn’t want their stock to lower for some reason and they planned this a long time ago…They seem to be making this announcement awfully early especially since the film still seems to be doing well internationally if not domestically. Usually they put the best face forward, but this time they seem to be running the opposite direction
If the Disney execs were big baseball fans they’d have figured out the problem with the tentpole strategy before they even tried it.
Babe Ruth was the home run king, and we all remember him for that, but he was also the strikeout king.
Saw JC this weekend on IMAX, and I enjoyed it a lot more than the raping of my childhood that was The Lorax. The first half hour is painfully dull, but after that it kicks into gear and is very entertaining. It’s not amazing acting, or an Oscar worthy script, but it’s easily worth the price of admission.
If anyone is to blame, it’s the marketing department and whomever cut those horrible trailers that told us nothing about the story or the characters. People aren’t going to show up in droves for 2 hours of a white hippie jumping really high, sorry Disney. Andrew also made a huge goof when he cut “of Mars” from the title. I understand his reasoning, but when your movie is already ambiguous thanks to the ad campaign, making it more so is not a winning strategy, and he should have known better. It might have worked if he were trading off the Pixar name, but he didn’t have that luxury this time. Pity, because it was a decent film, but Disney and Stanton have no one to blame but themselves. Can’t wait to see who they hold accountable, though.
The one responsible for the marketing campaign and the direction of the trailers was none other than Andrew Stanton himself. The first trailer was how he wanted the movie to be presented.
Wonder if he cut the trailers for Hugo as well, as that clunker suffered the same problems as those for JC. Trailers are supposed to tell you just enough about a film to make one want to see it. The trailers for these two films, however, just bored or confused the hell out of people.
Maybe he cut “Mars” out of the title because of the disaster “Mars Needs Moms.” LOL, But his major mistake was approving those sucky trailers. Those were some of the worst trailers I’ve ever seen for a movie. Not intriguing at all. No sense of the story whatsoever. John Carter Trailers = MAJOR FAIL.
The John Carter series was one of my favorites as a kid.
Disney gets punished for recycling something that’s much better as a book instead of creating original content.
It was John Carter’s revenge.
Maybe Disney development should look for that certain cave which transported John Carter to Mars, and go there, too. Maybe they’ll even find their Dejah Thoris – or a similarly shaped rock.
I saw a trailer for John Carter and it looked interesting and maybe something I would see…until I saw the Disney logo. To me Disney means substandard effects and a story that is playing to the lowest common denominator of the American market. It won’t be violent, sexy, or controversial – it will be bland.
The only Disney movies I am willing to see have a Pixar logo – and even at that I am only seeing half of them in a theatre.
John Carter also seems derivative, I had the same problem with LOTR. That is the problem when you are one of the first book to be written in a genre…and one of the last movies made. If I didn’t bother to see Avatar…why would I want to see what looks like almost the same movie but done by Disney?
Perhaps they should have used the Touchstone Pictures label.
I agree. When I saw the trailer I thought ‘looks good’ then saw the words ‘Disney’. Sorry but that implies a film aimed at young kids. If it was ‘Touchstone’ maybe would have taken it a little more seriously.
“John Carter is a great example of how there’s no more safety net from DVD sales.” How is that a great example when we have no idea what the ancillaries will be yet on this movie?
You know of all companies I would not have pegged Disney to SUCK at marketing! I took my young nephew to see this and he absolutely loved it. I have to say I enjoyed myself too. At the very least it didn’t give me a migraine like the Transformers sequels. This was a failure of marketing through and through.
The Disney shareholder is 100% incorrect in assessing the financial infrastructure of a media company that experiences a loss in one division. The mindset that institutes mandatory budget maximums across the board for creative investments is a sure dignity as to why some people sit on the sidelines as investors while the creative minds in the studios are the real risk takers. Money is green and holds the same value whether you invest in films or hamburger franchises. If you want to impose draconian investment rules for media projects, you’re better off investing in hamburger stands where you, as the investor, will have as much control over the product that you desire. Long live creative financial risks in creative industry. What Pixar is planning to do this summer will blow you away.
Translation: “Let me write a long paragraph using my high school SAT vocabulary to show the world how smart I think I am.”
Gosh Zach, what do you have against Saul.
thats exactly what I was thinking. Most people who know many big words only use them when necessary…the ones who don’t like to show them off so they appear more knowledgeable. I didn’t even read the end of his paragraph because it was too much.
So Disney decided to do less films for year and instead make a 250 Million movie (plus marketing)?.
Really smart business all around.
And the sad thing they are doing the same for next year: a 215 million movie (The Lone Ranger)and what if this fail too? this isn’t the pirate Caribbean after all.
i think its very clear that the only thing to blame is disney ‘s GA awful marketing.
The film is one of the few original sci-fi in decades.
It deserves a sequel and it should be made.
It’s not just the marketing if the movie is average with generic-looking visuals and a weak script and characters.
Sure, give it a sequel. But make it with at least half that total production budget. One of the reasons people are hoping JC fails is the ridiculous amount of money spent on it.
I agree, watch the business JC does on the DVD/Blue ray market when it is released there. Time for Disney finally to do some decent marketing of this great and underappreciated movie AND A SEQUEL!
I did a write up about ‘John Carter’ on my blog, and have been following it for awhile. The problem was, essentially, one of hubris on the part of Andrew Stanton, from what I could see.
Tell me why a film based upon a character most people have never heard of needs to be budged at +$250 million?
I suspect that the best advertising in the world would not have generated the box office receipts needed to make JC (John Carter, not Jesus Christ, who’s help Disney could have perhaps used) profitable, because Disney should have left the room when the price was rumored to hit $200 million, never mind actually doing so.
I saw the film yesterday, and while the first act is a bit uneven, it picks up considerably about 40 minutes in.
Disney let Stanton run away with it because they knew that if it failed, they could force Stanton to go back to animation and give them surefire hits again.
That’s interesting and it makes sense in a twisty way. I don’t know if it’s true, but it makes sense
This tanked and Battleship seems more of the same, yet Kitsch’s name is still at the top if the list for every big budget movie. Why?
Abby, sometimes is just luck; but there’s not doubt if Battleship is another flop, that will affect Kitsch’s future career and even could be excluded by other big projects and the A-List stardom.
Remember what happened with Gretchen Mol in the 90s. She has the biggest PR and they promoted her as the next Grace Kelly and then… flop after flop and beside her supporting role in “Broadwalk Empire”, her most recognizable role was… in “The 13 Floor”
She was awesome in the American remake of “Life on Mars.”
Because Hollywood is stupid and never learns anything? Because studio suits are terrified and fearful of making decisions, so defer to determined agents and their agendas? Because any fame is good, even if it is fame for being a big fat failure and charisma void?
I finally got to see John Carter and it wasn’t near as bad as I was led to believe from reading all the hullabaloo online. At this point people are just piling on based on a dislike for Disney or Stanton or both. The film was plodding and seemed like a throwback to 80s sword and sorcery schlock and honestly carried the same vibe I got from last years Conan the Barbarian. JC wasn’t a bad film, it just wasn’t fresh enough to pull itself out of that pop culture space. With its crazy budget, there was no room for mediocrity.
wasn’t Robert Rodriguez originally supposed to do this movie a few years ago, for like, $500 in his backyard in Austin? Oh what could have been…
I just can’t be sympathetic here. I don’t want to say how long I have been out of work. It’s too embarrassing. I have written three screenplays, for no money, no glory, no Hollywood anything. “On Spec” they call it. I enjoy the telling of it. Lately however, I could go for a deal, or a first-look option, or a pitch meeting, or-how about a job?! Neither Disney nor Stanton have my sympathy. When you drop that kind of coin, artistically or otherwise, you damn well better know what you’re doing. There is an old saying in Hollywood: When a movie succeeds, it’s because of the actors; when a movie fails, it’s because of the director. Well, Stanton, there it is. So now I get to say what all those high paid execs say to me: “Sorry about your luck pal.”