Even major players on the show business field can sometimes slip, as it happened with Disney's latest movie Tomorrowland. Although it had the potential to be the next Harry Potter franchise for this decade, the audience did not really buy into it, and as of now the numbers indicate that Disney can lose up to $140 million, or £90.5 million, with Brad Bird's movie.
Tomorrowland cost about £116 million to produce, and another £97 million was spent on marketing. The movie had its chance on the long Memorial Day weekend to produce some money for the studio, but it only grossed a soft £27.6 million, and as of June 8 it stood at £50 million domestically in the US and £60.5 million overseas, for a total of £110,5 million.
This is Disney's first major flop at the box office since The Lone Ranger (2013), that starred Johnny Depp. On paper, Tomorrowland had all the tools that was needed to be successful, with Brad Bird (Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol) as director, and George Clooney, but they couldn't manage to set the right tone for the movie. One of the weaknesses that most critics raved about was that Tomorrowland failed to define itself as a movie either for the kids or the adults.
Tomorrowland's failure falls into the line of this year's trend with Jupiter Ascending and Seventh Son already failing at the box offices, while low budget movies like Spy, San Andreas and Pitch Perfect 2 exceeding expectations by a large margin.
If anything comes out of this, it's that the studios will be more reluctant to give out money for original ideas, and the audience can expect the continuation of sequels, and the creating of more interconnected cinematic universes, like Marvel's, DC's or Paramount's Transformers.
Whatever was the main reason for Tomorrowland's failure, even rival executives say that Disney had to take the chance with Mr.
Bird as the director and Mr. Clooney as the main lead. It seems sometimes the stars just don't align the right way, and studios can't do anything about it.
Even with Tomorrowland's setback, we cannot really feel sorry for Disney, that has other franchises like Marvel and the most anticipated Star Wars with upcoming movies.
Disney's stocks didn't take a fall, and we can bet our money that Disney will still finish the current financial year with a big profit, especially with Star Wars: The Force Awakens coming out this December.
