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Forums - General - The Worst Product Flops of 2012

bananaking21 on 29 December 2012
thismeintiel said:
JoeTheBro said:
John Carter was actually a great movie. It's a shame most reviewers and movie goers didn't understand that.

Oh and that Vita paragraph is just horrible! I understand putting it on a list like this but they should at least put some effort into explaining why it belongs. By saying it cost $300 the writer comes off as manipulative.

It's kinda weird seeing John Carter up there.  It grossed ~$283M WW, so it made back more than its "production budget" and made even more with home video sales.  So, it at least broke even.  Of course, movie studios always exaggerate the costs of movies to make them seem bigger than they really are, so it probably made a decent profit.

As for the Vita, it's really the only product on that list that has the ability to turn things around.  A few more good games, as well as an inevitable $50 price cut in 2013 (and probably a $150 Black Friday bundle), should definitely see it rise YOY by a good margin.


with marketing it cost them 350 million to make, and it brought it 283M WW. also there is no way its gonna generate 70 million in DVD/BR sales. it tanked easily. were talking about a 250 million budget movie here, breaking even shouldnt even be considered, even disney them selfs said it was a flop (according to the article) 

and yes the vita couldnt be considered a flop as consoles tend to have 4 or 5 year life cycles at the minimum. calling it a flop when it just started is just ludacris 



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thismeintiel on 29 December 2012
Barozi said:
thismeintiel said:
Barozi said:

From what I've heard, films need to make about twice as much money at the box office as their budget was to break even. I pretty much doubt that it even made a $1 profit even with DVD/Blu-Ray revenue.

Then you're horribly misinformed.  The "production budget" covers everything but marketing.  Which if Disney is truthful in the costs of the film and marketing, then it would need to make $350M to break even.  However, like I said above, movie studios always exaggerate their budgets to the public to make them seem bigger than they are.  I'm sure Disney turned a small profit on the movie.  Of course, that's not what they wanted ideally.

So what do cinema operators earn per sold ticket ? $1 profit ?

The vast majority of theatres' money comes from concession sales, as well as the ads before the movie.  For about the first month a movie is out, the theatre keeps ~20% of the ticket sales, while ~80% goes back to the studio.  After that first month, the studio only keeps ~40%.  Your also ignoring an important part, studios often exaggerate their production costs.  I remember listening to an audio commentary (can't recall the movie), and I believe it was Stephen Sommers (could have been someone else) saying to never believe the budget that studios site, since he had to make the movie for much less than what they told the public. He even gave an example of one of his earlier movies, which I believe they said cost nearly twice as much as it reallly did.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not trying to make a movie I like seem like it did better than the public peception is.  In fact, I've never seen the movie.  But, I know it probably made a slight profit, which still isn't good.



 

OceanJ on 29 December 2012

Mitt Romney



HappySqurriel on 29 December 2012

I saw John Carter and it was a pretty average movie, and it could have probably been made for 1/4 to 1/2 of the budget without really hurting the movie. I watched it after it was a well known "flop" and I kept wondering why someone was willing to bet so heavily on it ...


It may not be entirely fair to call the PS-Vita a flop, but it is certainly a troubled platform that has had disappointing sales to date. The PS-Vita was expected to sell 16 million units in its first year and will likely sell around 5 million, and sales are roughly half what the PSP or PS3's sales were.


Microsoft's surface was probably left off the list because there are no solid sales numbers yet. If some of the sales projections are accurate, it is selling at about 1/4 of its projected sales rate and its sales are less than 10% of the more popular Apple and Android tablets; which could probably justify a spot on one of these lists.



Chris Hu on 29 December 2012
thismeintiel said:
Barozi said:
thismeintiel said:
Barozi said:

From what I've heard, films need to make about twice as much money at the box office as their budget was to break even. I pretty much doubt that it even made a $1 profit even with DVD/Blu-Ray revenue.

Then you're horribly misinformed.  The "production budget" covers everything but marketing.  Which if Disney is truthful in the costs of the film and marketing, then it would need to make $350M to break even.  However, like I said above, movie studios always exaggerate their budgets to the public to make them seem bigger than they are.  I'm sure Disney turned a small profit on the movie.  Of course, that's not what they wanted ideally.

So what do cinema operators earn per sold ticket ? $1 profit ?

The vast majority of theatres' money comes from concession sales, as well as the ads before the movie.  For about the first month a movie is out, the theatre keeps ~20% of the ticket sales, while ~80% goes back to the studio.  After that first month, the studio only keeps ~40%.  Your also ignoring an important part, studios often exaggerate their production costs.  I remember listening to an audio commentary (can't recall the movie), and I believe it was Stephen Sommers (could have been someone else) saying to never believe the budget that studios site, since he had to make the movie for much less than what they told the public. He even gave an example of one of his earlier movies, which I believe they said cost nearly twice as much as it reallly did.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not trying to make a movie I like seem like it did better than the public peception is.  In fact, I've never seen the movie.  But, I know it probably made a slight profit, which still isn't good.


With a $100 million dollar add campaign on top of the $250 million dollar budget there is no way John Carter made a profit no matter how you spin the numbers.  Also by the time a movie stops running it usually a 50/50 split between theaters and studios when it comes to a movies box office gross.  In some foreign countries the studios get a lot less then 50% of the movies gross most noticably China where the studios only get 25%.  Anyway since the budget for The Lone Ranger is listed at $250 million on wikipedia Disney is the front runner for having another big budget box office bomb in 2013.  I highly doubt Rich Ross who was the head of Walt Disney Studios when John Carter was released would have resiged if John Cater would have made a slight profit.  Disney looks especially bad on this list since Pan Am was on ABC which is owned by Disney even though the show wasn't produced by them it was made by Sony Pictures.



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slashydrunkard on 29 December 2012
Chris Hu said:
thismeintiel said:
Barozi said:
thismeintiel said:
Barozi said:

From what I've heard, films need to make about twice as much money at the box office as their budget was to break even. I pretty much doubt that it even made a $1 profit even with DVD/Blu-Ray revenue.

Then you're horribly misinformed.  The "production budget" covers everything but marketing.  Which if Disney is truthful in the costs of the film and marketing, then it would need to make $350M to break even.  However, like I said above, movie studios always exaggerate their budgets to the public to make them seem bigger than they are.  I'm sure Disney turned a small profit on the movie.  Of course, that's not what they wanted ideally.

So what do cinema operators earn per sold ticket ? $1 profit ?

The vast majority of theatres' money comes from concession sales, as well as the ads before the movie.  For about the first month a movie is out, the theatre keeps ~20% of the ticket sales, while ~80% goes back to the studio.  After that first month, the studio only keeps ~40%.  Your also ignoring an important part, studios often exaggerate their production costs.  I remember listening to an audio commentary (can't recall the movie), and I believe it was Stephen Sommers (could have been someone else) saying to never believe the budget that studios site, since he had to make the movie for much less than what they told the public. He even gave an example of one of his earlier movies, which I believe they said cost nearly twice as much as it reallly did.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not trying to make a movie I like seem like it did better than the public peception is.  In fact, I've never seen the movie.  But, I know it probably made a slight profit, which still isn't good.


With a $100 million dollar add campaign on top of the $250 million dollar budget there is no way John Carter made a profit no matter how you spin the numbers.  Also by the time a movie stops running it usually a 50/50 split between theaters and studios when it comes to a movies box office gross.  In some foreign countries the studios get a lot less then 50% of the movies gross most noticably China where the studios only get 25%.  Anyway since the budget for The Lone Ranger is listed at $250 million on wikipedia Disney is the front runner for having another big budget box office bomb in 2013.  I highly doubt Rich Ross who was the head of Walt Disney Studios when John Carter was released would have resiged if John Cater would have made a slight profit.  Disney looks especially bad on this list since Pan Am was on ABC which is owned by Disney even though the show wasn't produced by them it was made by Sony Pictures.

Exactly. Pretty much impossible. 

It was all thanks to the outrageous performance of Avengers and the solid sales for Pixar's Brave that Disney's 2012 turned out so well. 

I'm also with you on The Lone Ranger. I anticipate it underperforming. I don't know who's currently calling the shots, but seeing as Disney is the only major studio that self-finances its films, it's perplexing how they take these big risks on medicore material. Without Marvel and Pixar, what the hell would be going on at the House of Mickey?? 



OceanJ on 29 December 2012

Windows Surface



thismeintiel on 29 December 2012
Chris Hu said:
thismeintiel said:

The vast majority of theatres' money comes from concession sales, as well as the ads before the movie.  For about the first month a movie is out, the theatre keeps ~20% of the ticket sales, while ~80% goes back to the studio.  After that first month, the studio only keeps ~40%.  Your also ignoring an important part, studios often exaggerate their production costs.  I remember listening to an audio commentary (can't recall the movie), and I believe it was Stephen Sommers (could have been someone else) saying to never believe the budget that studios site, since he had to make the movie for much less than what they told the public. He even gave an example of one of his earlier movies, which I believe they said cost nearly twice as much as it reallly did.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm not trying to make a movie I like seem like it did better than the public peception is.  In fact, I've never seen the movie.  But, I know it probably made a slight profit, which still isn't good.


With a $100 million dollar add campaign on top of the $250 million dollar budget there is no way John Carter made a profit no matter how you spin the numbers.  Also by the time a movie stops running it usually a 50/50 split between theaters and studios when it comes to a movies box office gross.  In some foreign countries the studios get a lot less then 50% of the movies gross most noticably China where the studios only get 25%.  Anyway since the budget for The Lone Ranger is listed at $250 million on wikipedia Disney is the front runner for having another big budget box office bomb in 2013.  I highly doubt Rich Ross who was the head of Walt Disney Studios when John Carter was released would have resiged if John Cater would have made a slight profit.  Disney looks especially bad on this list since Pan Am was on ABC which is owned by Disney even though the show wasn't produced by them it was made by Sony Pictures.

Read the bolded part.  And he probably would still have been asked to resign, anyway.  Well, unless John Carter became one the largest hits ever.  But, movies studios don't look to waste their time and money just so they barely break even, or make a slight profit, once home video sales are in.  More importantly, there was a lot of crap going on behind the scenes that didn't just pertain to his movie choices, some of those choices definitely being duds (Mars Needs Moms being a big one).  I do have to agree with you, though, TLR definitely looks like its going to bomb HARD. 



 

Chris Hu on 29 December 2012

I doubt they overexaggerated the budget with John Carter.  Anyway TLR has a change to be even a bigger bomb its main star Armie Hammer is even less bankable then Taylor Kitch and Johnny Depp who is the main costar last movie Dark Shadows bombed also.  Disney's only hope is that it will be hugely successful overseas like the Priates of the Caribbean movies but I doubt that will happen since in recent years westerns have done a lot worse at the box office overseas compared to domestically. 



MoHasanie on 30 December 2012

Pan Am wasn't that big of a flop. There were many other bigger TV flops last year.
It actually started off quite strong with a good lead in from Desperate Housewives, but the quality of the writing got poor and the show was very boring IMO.



    

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