InfoAnda - Disney space movie tests big-budget film strategy |

Pakistanis angry over detentions in Times Sq. case
Monday, May 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD – Relatives of three men detained by Pakistan for alleged links to the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing say the men are innocent.
They

Taiwan denies boycotting Australian film festival
Thursday, August 6, 2009

AFP - Thursday, August 6TAIPEI (AFP) - - Taiwan's Beijing-friendly government on Wednesday denied boycotting an Australian film festival amid a row over the e

Merkel's support dips, regional ally resigns International
Thursday, September 3, 2009

By Sarah Marsh and Noah Barkin

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a double blow on Thursday as a senior party ally in east German

Minister seeks closure of anti-Berlusconi websites
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
ROME (AFP) - – The Italian government moved Tuesday to close down Internet sites encouraging further violence against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who

Asian markets mixed after Wall Street rally
Wednesday, March 18, 2009

By ELAINE KURTENBACH,AP Business Writer AP - Wednesday, March 18SHANGHAI - Asia's stock market rally seemed to be running out of steam Wednesday, despite an

PLO says no talks until Israel halts settlements | | 2 October 2010
Afghanistan commanders expect spike in violence | 1 April 2009
U.S. Stocks Rally On Bernanke's Interest Rate Comments | 25 February 2010

Plumber helps catch Starbucks Peeping Tom | 12 August 2011

Forum Views () Forum Replies ()

Read more with google mobile : Disney space movie tests big-budget film strategy |

Edition: U.S. Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Home Business Business Home Economy Technology Media Small Business Legal Deals Earnings Social Pulse Business Video The Freeland File Markets Markets Home U.S. Markets European Markets Asian Markets Global Market Data Indices M&A Stocks Bonds Currencies Commodities Futures Funds peHUB World World Home U.S. Brazil China Euro Zone Japan Mexico Russia India Insight World Video Reuters Investigates Decoder Politics Politics Home Election 2012 Issues 2012 Candidates 2012 Tales from the Trail Political Punchlines Supreme Court Politics Video Tech Technology Home MediaFile Science Tech Video Tech Tonic Social Pulse Opinion Opinion Home Chrystia Freeland John Lloyd Felix Salmon Jack Shafer David Rohde Bernd Debusmann Nader Mousavizadeh Lucy P. Marcus David Cay Johnston Bethany McLean Edward Hadas Hugo Dixon Ian Bremmer Mohamed El-Erian Lawrence Summers Susan Glasser The Great Debate Steven Brill Jack & Suzy Welch Breakingviews Equities Credit Private Equity M&A Macro & Markets Politics Breakingviews Video Money Money Home Tax Break Lipper Awards 2012 Global Investing MuniLand Unstructured Finance Linda Stern Mark Miller John Wasik James Saft Analyst Research Alerts Watchlist Portfolio Stock Screener Fund Screener Personal Finance Video Money Clip Investing 201 Life Health Sports Arts Faithworld Business Traveler Entertainment Oddly Enough Lifestyle Video Pictures Pictures Home Reuters Photographers Full Focus Video Reuters TV Reuters News Article Comments (0) Follow Reuters Facebook Twitter RSS YouTube Read Banks foreclosing on churches in record numbers 10:25am EST Israel asks U.S. for arms that could aid Iran strike 08 Mar 2012 Whitney Houston leaves fortune to daughter 7:15am EST Kony: can a YouTube video stop an international killer? 11:12am EST U.S. adds Vatican to money-laundering 'concern' list 08 Mar 2012 Discussed 158 Obama warns against ”loose talk” of war on Iran 128 Israel asks U.S. for arms that could aid Iran strike 105 Three Occupy Oakland protesters charged with hate crimes Watched Turkish soap operas ignite culture war in Middle East revolution – Decoder Thu, Mar 8 2012 Should you sell your iPad 2 for a new iPad? - Tech Tonic Wed, Mar 7 2012 U.S. Navy kicks off rail gun tests with a bang Tue, Feb 28 2012 Disney space movie tests big-budget film strategy Tweet Share this Email Print Related News "John Carter" filmmaker faces risky debut with a smile Wed, Mar 7 2012 Animated "Lorax" leads box office with big debut Sun, Mar 4 2012 "The Artist" paints golden picture at Oscars Mon, Feb 27 2012 Billy Crystal, Jolie's leg boost Oscar audience Mon, Feb 27 2012 Denzel Washington's "Safe House" grabs box office crown Mon, Feb 20 2012 Analysis & Opinion Inside Islam’s culture war Do we need a referendum on referendums? Related Topics Entertainment » Fashion » Film » Taylor Kitsch and the white apes in a scene from “John Carter”. Credit: Reuters/Disney By Lisa Richwine and Ronald Grover LOS ANGELES | Fri Mar 9, 2012 4:16pm EST LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "John Carter," the 3D space adventure film that opens today, was supposed to be the Walt Disney Co's latest franchise movie, a blockbuster on par with "Cars" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" that generates profits beyond the film to television, books, and consumer products. Instead, industry tracking suggests it will be the latest big-budget box office bust. While Hollywood's hit-and-miss nature has always made it an inherently risky investment, the possible failure of "John Carter" underscores the increased risk studios have taken in recent years by reducing the number of movies they produce to focus on big-budget films. Betting on big-budget movies -- called "tent poles" because they are meant to hold up the rest of the studio's slate -- is a high-risk, high-reward business. Winners pay hefty dividends for years with film sequels, toys, video games and even theme-park rides. A flop can cost tens of millions of dollars. Evercore Partners analyst Alan Gould estimates "John Carter" could lose $165 million. Disney knows the cost of failure all too well. The company last year took a write-down of more than $70 million after its animated movie "Mars Needs Moms" tanked. The poor performance of that film had repercussions beyond the studio division, dragging down the media giant's overall quarterly earnings to below analyst forecasts, sending its shares tumbling 3 percent. "Green Lantern," the silver screen version of the superhero comic book character, was supposed to be a franchise film for Warner Bros last year. Instead, Time Warner Inc Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes, said it "fell fairly far short" of expectations, pulling in just $222 million around the world on an estimated production budget of $200 million, according to website BoxOfficeMojo.com. That figure excludes the tens of millions that studios usually spend to market and advertise a movie with a production budget of that size. Sci-fi Western "Cowboys & Aliens" also stumbled. The movie, from Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks studio and Comcast Corp's Universal Pictures, pulled in $175 million in ticket sales around the world on a production budget of $163 million, excluding marketing costs. "I think you are seeing more misfires because, from a business strategy, the studios are green lighting more tent pole product. With more at bats, there is inherently more strike out potential," said Amir Malin, former head of Artisan Entertainment and current managing partner at Qualia Capital, a New York-based hedge fund that has invested in film and TV libraries. "It does not mean it's the wrong business strategy," he added. "Imagine if Disney had not produced 'Pirates.'" Indeed, studios have focused on franchise films in recent years because of the big rewards that can be reaped when one connects. The fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie, for example, grossed more than $1 billion worldwide last year, prompting Disney to begin work on a fifth. "Cars 2" brought in $554 million for the company last year and will sell more merchandise than the $2.8 billion from "Toy Story," Disney told analysts last year. Combined, the two franchises have grossed a total of $4.7 billion. Big-budget movies "are succeeding more than they are failing," said Vincent Bruzzese, president of the motion picture group at researcher Ipsos MediaCT. Two-thirds of last year's top 15 films were franchise movies, he said. The promise of big rewards from franchise films has incited studio executives to climb over each other in search of the next "Titanic," said Bill Mechanic, who ran News Corp's 20th Century Fox when it co-financed the 1997 mega-hit. "Titanic" became the highest-grossing film ever at the time, with more than $1.8 billion in global sales. It was surpassed by another Fox film, "Avatar," which grossed $2.8 billion after its December 2009 release. Mechanic, who now produces mid-budget movies through his Pandemonium Films, said one problem with the franchise film strategy is that there are now so many tentpole films that they compete against one another. A week after "Cowboys & Aliens" opened, Fox released "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." When that happens, "one of the bigs isn't nearly as big," said Mechanic. Further, studios are churning out more franchise films at a time when movie attendance is in decline and sales of DVDs are crumbling, taking away a money-minting safety net for many films. Even the big hits can no longer count on DVD sales to consumers and services like Netflix and Redbox, said Roger Smith, a former film industry executive and now a consultant with Roger Smith & Co in New York. The 2006 film "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" generated home entertainment sales equal to 90 percent of its $282 million U.S. and Canadian box office, Smith said. Last year's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows -- Part 2," the series finale, will equal less than 50 percent of the $381 million the movie grossed at domestic theaters. At a recent investor conference, Disney Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo said the "melting ice cube of the DVD" had prompted a new look at the movie business. The company concluded that the "highest, most likely return" would come from franchise films. As a result, Disney cut the number of movies it produces each year to 10 or 12 from as many as 25, he said. Even before "John Carter" hit the screen, the movie's budget increased from $150 million to more than $200 million, according to a studio executive with knowledge of the project. From the outset, the film's special effects were a problem. Disney had the rights to do the film in the mid-1980s and had hired action director John McTiernan to direct. Disney held off because the technology wasn't yet ready to do the film it envisioned, said the executive, and eventually lost the rights to Viacom's Paramount Pictures. Disney came back into the picture in January 2007 when the studio bought the rights at the urging of Andrew Stanton, one of Pixar's most valuable executives and writer for animated hits "Toy Story," "A Bug's Life" and "Finding Nemo." By 2009, Stanton had a three-part series ready to shoot, but Disney worried the price tag was rising too fast, said a studio executive. They asked for a new script, and in early 2009 Disney studio chief Dick Cook greenlit the film with directions to keep its budget under $200 million. The budget began grew after Cook left in September 2009. Stanton started production in early 2010, three months after former Disney Channel executive Rich Ross took over the studio. Ross had canceled or delayed other Cook projects, including an expensive update of its 1954 Jules Vern tale "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Ross allowed John Carter to proceed. The film was completed just as Disney's marketing chief MT Carney was leaving and was replaced a former Sony Pictures marketing executive Ricky Strauss. With an estimated production budget of $250 million, "John Carter" needs to generate at least $400 million in box office receipts to generate enough theater, home video and television revenue to cover the film's production and promotion costs, Davenport & Co analyst Michael Morris estimated. So far, "John Carter" has grossed $13 million since opening in some international markets on Wednesday and Thursday. Early Friday shows just after midnight brought in $500,000 in the United States and Canada. Disney is hoping for a weekend domestic opening in the $30 million range, said Dave Hollis, executive vice president for motion picture sales and distribution at Disney. That would leave a crater-sized gap before the story of a former military captain who is transported to Mars could earn back its production and promotion costs, given the fact that movies typically score their biggest box-office hauls during opening weekend. Despite the risks, major movie studios can usually weather a big loss. When "Green Lantern" stumbled, Warner Bros. scored in the same quarter with "The Hangover 2," which earned $581.5 million around the world. For conglomerates like Disney, "film studios are a fairly small percentage of the total corporate earnings. They can make it up in cable or they can make it up in theme parks," said Hal Vogel, a media analyst and head of Vogel Capital Management. "Everybody is afraid to be the one who stops trying to take the plunge," former Fox studio chief Mechanic said. After all, no one wants to miss out on the next "Star Wars." (Reporting By Lisa Richwine and Ronald Grover; Editing by Peter Lauria) Entertainment Fashion Film Related Quotes and News Company Price Related News Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints Entertainment News From the Wrap Billboard Publisher, Editor Out, Other Top Staffers Follow 2:52pm EST Billboard, the music industry's leading trade publication, has lost its editor, publisher and other top staffers Todd Park New Chief Technology Officer for White House 2:22pm EST Replaces Aneesh Chopra, who left the White House in January -- just after offering doubts about anti-piracy legislation ‘Footnote’ Review: Father & Son Battle Their Wits in Darkly Funny Oscar Nominee 2:38pm EST In a wonderfully twisted plot, politics become personal as parent and child vie for the same prize PTC Says 'Bully' to MPAA's R-Rating for 'Bully' 2:24pm EST "An accurate content rating in no way diminishes the powerful and vitally important messages conveyed in the film,” the conservative Parents Television Council says We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above. Edition: U.S. Africa Arabic Argentina Brazil Canada China France Germany India Italy Japan Latin America Mexico Russia Spain United Kingdom Back to top Reuters.com Business Markets World Politics Technology Opinion Money Pictures Videos Site Index Legal Bankruptcy Law California Legal New York Legal Securities Law Support & Contact Support Corrections Advertise With Us Connect with Reuters Twitter Facebook LinkedIn RSS Podcast Newsletters Mobile About Privacy Policy Terms of Use Copyright Our Flagship financial information platform incorporating Reuters Insider An ultra-low latency infrastructure for electronic trading and data distribution A connected approach to governance, risk and compliance Our next generation legal research platform Our global tax workstation Thomsonreuters.com About Thomson Reuters Investor Relations Careers Contact Us Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

Other News on Saturday, 10 March 2012
Thousands rally in Libya against autonomy for east |
Germany wants new debate on EU constitution: minister |
Analysis:Legal fees in Gulf oil spill deal stir conflict |
Cocoa smugglers on motorbikes evade Ivorian guards |
Apple to build $304 million campus in Texas, add 3,600 jobs |
Search engine users disapprove of data collection: survey |
Hacker combined online attacks with petty crime |
Quest Software to go private in $2 billion deal |
Search engine users disapprove of data collection: survey |
Disney space movie tests big-budget film strategy |
''Salmon Fishing'' film makes impossible seem possible |
Oldest film based on Dickens found in Britain |
Afghan officials visit Guantanamo in peace bid |
Annan in Syria to press Assad for ceasefire |
Thousands rally in Libya against autonomy for east |
Yemen air raids kill 10 suspected Qaeda militants |
Afghanistan and U.S. sign prison transfer deal |
Slovak left poised to win election, sink reformists |
Italy condemns botched British raid in Nigeria |
Chinese police shoot dead 4 in raid in Xinjiang: report |
Israel kills 10 Palestinian militants in Gaza strikes |
Cocoa smugglers on motorbikes evade Ivorian guards |
Apple's new iPad making waves in video game market |
Web giants' consumer privacy strategy faces hard sell |
Billboard names Taylor Swift big money maker of 2012 |
Whitney Houston sought love in wrong places: relative |
Sarah Palin dismisses ''Game Change'' as unimportant |
''Kony 2012'' director answers critics of video |
Dennis Quaid's wife files for divorce |
Author defends Doonesbury abortion strip |
Japan mourns tsunami dead; grapples with unfinished business |
Taliban Guantanamo detainees agree to Qatar transfer: official |
Israel kills four more Gaza gunmen, rockets hit Israel |
Smaller crowds challenge Putin after Russia poll |
Bahrain says will hold dialogue to end crisis soon |
Nigeria hostages killed in bathroom during rescue: witness |
Greece at new risk of being pushed off euro
Bodies of missing Tenn. mom, Jo Ann Bain, and daughter found
Female Breasts Are Bigger Than Ever
AMD Trinity Accelerated Processing Units Now in Volume Production
The Avengers (2012 film), made the second biggest opening- and single-day gross of all-time
AMD to Start Production of piledriver
Ivy Bridge Quad-Core, Four-Thread Desktop CPUs
Islamists Protest Lady Gaga's Concert in Indonesia
Japan Successfully Broadcasts an 8K Signal Over the Air
ECB boosts loans to 1 trillion Euro to stop credit crunch
Egypt : Mohammed Morsi won with 52 percent
What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up
AMD Launches AMD Embedded R-Series APU Platform
Fed Should not Ignore Emerging Market Crisis
Fed casts shadow over India, emerging markets
Why are Chinese tourists so rude? A few insights

USD EUR - 1 year graph		BlogMeter 1.01