14 DAY TRIAL // One of the most anticipated movies of the year was “Tomorrowland,” from director Brad Bird and writer Damon Lindelof, distributed by Disney Pictures and starring none other than A-lister George Clooney. It also boasted an original story, which, in today’s context of sequels and reboots, should have made the difference.
“Tomorrowland” had everything going for it in terms of becoming a box office success, but it will end up being a massive write-down instead.
“Tomorrowland” is Disney’s biggest flop in 2 years
You wouldn’t think that a movie that has so many things going on for it, including early positive buzz online, could ever be deemed a flop, but by the time it ends its theatrical run, this is exactly what it will be, The Hollywood Reporter says.
“Tomorrowland” was a massive and very expensive gamble, and it just didn’t pay off.
“Yes, they took a miss with ‘Tomorrowland,’ but there are so many things working for Disney,” Eric Handler of MKM Partners, says for THR. They had “Cinderella” and “Avengers: Out of Ultron” out this year, and are preparing for even more hits, like “Ant-Man” or “Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.”
Making “Tomorrowland” cost about $180 million (€160 million), with Disney and its partners spending another $150 million (€134 million) on marketing. They threw a lot of money at it, that much is clear, but as noted above, they had no reason to even think it would not be received well.
So far, the box office gross is for $170 million (€151.4 million) globally, but industry analysts don’t believe it can cross the $200 million (€178.1 million) threshold. Best case scenario, it will put Disney in the hole for $120 million (€106.8 million), which is still much less than the damage caused by “The Lone Ranger” in 2013, or “John Carter” before it.
So what happened?
Movie pundits blame the flop on a combination of negative buzz and the audience’s fear to take a risk.
Promotion for the film wasn’t as heavy as you might expect from a Disney pic online, which, in turn, led to talk that there was something bad with it. In this industry, this is usually the norm: whenever a studio comes across as not doing enough to promote their own movie, they have lost faith in the project already.
As negative buzz started picking up, Disney relied solely on Clooney’s name, the Disney name, Bird’s reputation and the original story to make “Tomorrowland” into a hit. In doing so, they failed to take into account the fact that audiences these days aren’t as quick to take risks with what they’re paying good money for as before.
If they’re paying for something, they expect it to be something good. And “Tomorrowland” didn’t strike a chord with them.
To make matters even worse, the film also opened against strong competitors “Pitch Perfect 2” and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and was difficult to classify by the target audience. Viewers couldn’t tell if it was a kids’ movie or one for the adults.
Then again, as the analyst says, don’t worry for Disney. “Age of Ultron” is currently the fifth biggest seller of all time, with an international gross of $1.34 billion (€1.19 billion) and it’s not even out of theaters yet.