Jessica Pellegrino – General Assignment Reporter
Sometimes, films cost more money to make than they make in box office profits, rendering them movie flops. There are a lot of reasons why a movie would flop. Whether it be a flood of similar movies all coming out at the same time or an all-star cast of over-actors.
Regardless of the reason why, some movies just fall below expectation. Skye Rankin, a junior, weighs in on what movies she believes make for the biggest flops.
“I would have say the new live-action style Disney movies that they are trying to make are big flops,” said Rankin. “The ones like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ are not great.”
Rankin believes that the live-action remakes cannot hold a candle to the originals. Erin Albert, a senior, agrees with this.
“I think that ‘Pan’ was one of the biggest movie flops ever. All movies in that category. They had spent a lot of time and money on it,” said Albert. “But when it came out this year its ratings did not go as well as the originally thought. Many people decided not to go see it.”
Pan, according to the website Box Office Mojo, had a production value of 150 million but only managed to make a domestic total of 34,126,843 dollars as of Nov. 24.
Some of Disney’s biggest failures have happened when Disney decided to dip its toes in the live-action water. Yet, Disney continues to create live action versions of some of the classics.
Take for example one of Disney’s more recent releases, “The Lone Ranger.” Even Johnny Depp, the pride of Hollywood, could not keep this film from the five dollar bin at Walmart.
The thing about Disney is that children are their main demographic, which is why animated movies do so well. Children want to watch their favorite characters animated. When suddenly, live actors are included, in confuses the audience. Disney jumbles their demographics. This is not an isolated incident.
The most recent Disney live-action blunder is “Tomorrowland.” The movie took an ultra complicated young adult novel, and a 1964 World’s Fair, and butchered them. The movie cost Disney a production budget of 190 million dollars and only brought out a domestic total gross of 93,436,322 dollars, according to Box Office Mojo.
“Alice in Wonderland,” however, was released in 2010, and boasted an all-star cast including Johnny Depp and Anne Hathaway, and the backbone of Tim Burton as the director. The movie broke records and grossed over a billion dollars. The sequel is set to be released next year.
The next installment in the Disney live-action collection is a version of the early Disney classic, “The Jungle Book.”
Fantasy movies, like Disney’s live action trope, fail for many reasons, but the most common reason is their typically high budgets. Live action fantasy costs millions in special effects and costume design alone. Often times, the movies will cost more to make than they gross in return profits, especially if the market is being flooded by similar fantasy style movies.
With the cost of movie making skyrocketing and the price of a movie ticket always on the rise, it will become harder and harder to break even, let alone make a profit from movies.
Photo Credit: Marta Wlusek