Warners To Write Off $130-150M On "Pan"?
By
Garth Franklin Monday October 12th 2015 05:51PM
With a 24% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a disastrous $15.3 million opening weekend launch in North America, the hope for Warners was that their big-budget Peter Pan origin story "Pan" might be able to mitigate its losses with a healthy international gross.
It's a fair enough hope, foreign grosses have saved panned blockbusters like "Battleship" and "Terminator Genisys" and well-regarded ones like "Pacific Rim" and "The Adventures Of Tintin" after all did only middling domestic business. However they aren't a guarantee, and foreign audiences seem disinterested in "Pan" which is struggling internationally and grossed just $20.4 million over the weekend from 54 markets.
As a result,
THR reports that, according to analysts and box-office experts, the film could see losses in the $130 million to $150 million range. The studio however has not gone on the record about the film's performance, and a wild card left in the mix is China where the film opens October 22nd and could lower the potential losses.
The trade reports that the studio gambled big on the film in the hopes of launching a new family fantasy franchise to make up for the end of their "Harry Potter" series. It now joins several other high-profile money losers for the studio this year including "Jupiter Ascending" and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.".
Despite the dark times, the studio's 2016 slate looks incredibly promising with " Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," "Suicide Squad" and Harry Potter spinoff "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" all on the way.
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