John Carter Flops Domestically

There is no magic formula to finding “the next big thing” in films.  Recent years have seen huge profits from adapting comics, graphic novels, and books, but not all can be box office gold.  This past weekend saw Disney’s high budget release “John Carter”.  At a production cost of $250 million, releasing “John Carter” outside of the summer blockbuster season was a huge risk for Disney, and one that didn’t pay off.  The source material for John Carter served as the influence for mega hit Star Wars, but struggled itself to find its own unique experience.  It seems as though a number of factors contributed to John Carter’s lackluster $30.6 million domestic box office.  Pixar superstar Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-E) followed fellow Pixar alumn Brad Birdd (The Incredibles, Mission Impossible 4) into the arena of live action albeit with far less success.  You pair that with a cast that contains no recognizable stars to piggyback a marketing campaign on it was inevitable that Disney had a tough road ahead of it in order to turn any kind of profit.  On the bright side, the film managed to pull in $70 million internationally, but moving forward that number will only drop falling well below the cost of production and marketing for the film.  The past year has seen a myriad of disappointing big budget adaptations of lesser known properties including Cowboys and Aliens, Green Lantern and Prince of Persia.  Even the recently released The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo failed to perform to expectations at the box office despite being based off of one of the most popular books released in recent years.  All of the activity at the box office lately leaves studios confused and scratching their heads looking for a more profitable approach to their movie releasing strategies moving forward into the year.