The Hugh Jackman Fantasy Flop That Lost Warner Bros. Over $100 Million

In April 2015, The Hollywood Reporter famous that Warner Bros. was getting ready to “flood the market” that summer time with a slate of 9 movies designed to fill the hole left by the absence of Christopher Nolan’s “Darkish Knight” trilogy and the “Harry Potter” movies. On the time, Warner’s home distribution chief Dan Fellman advised the outlet, “Will probably be powerful work, however I feel it would repay.”

In some methods, WB’s strategy did repay. The Dwayne Johnson-led “San Andreas,” produced on a price range of $110 million, raked in $474 million worldwide. And whereas “Mad Max: Fury Highway” did not fare fairly as properly, making $380 million worldwide on a $150 million price range, it did at the very least garner important acclaim and stays the most effective movies in the “Mad Max” saga. However one big-budget Warner mission failed spectacularly on each a important and business entrance.

A Peter Pan origin story starring Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard the Pirate alongside Levi Miller as Peter Pan does not sound like it will have been an out and out catastrophe. But it surely was, and it misplaced Warner Bros. a heck of some huge cash.

“Pan” was a Peter Pan origin story from Joe Wright, who had beforehand directed a Finest Image Oscar nominee with “Atonement,” a novel motion thriller with “Hanna,” and a strong historic drama that additionally garnered Academy Award nominations with “Anna Karenina.” As such, there was no indication that his Peter Pan origin story would show to be as huge a flop as it will definitely was, however “Pan” failed at the box office in spectacular style.

2015 was filled with field workplace heavy hitters, from “Star Wars: Episode VII — The Drive Awakens,” which made greater than $2 billion worldwide, to “Jurassic World,” which wasn’t far behind with $1.6 billion. Sadly, such a stacked yr left little room for Wright’s movie to succeed, which for Warner Bros. meant dropping a large chunk of change.

The studio had given Wright $150 million to make his movie, and that is just about exactly what the movie made when it comes to its international field workplace receipts. That may not appear to be a disaster however contemplating studios sometimes get half of the home field workplace and fewer for some worldwide markets, plus the very fact Warners would have spent a big quantity on advertising and marketing, it meant the studio misplaced some huge cash — roughly $150 million in line with studies on the time.

What was the issue? Properly, other than 2015 being so stacked with blockbuster choices, critics largely agreed: “Pan” was simply unhealthy.

Initially deliberate for a June 2015 launch, “Pan” was shunted again to October, ostensibly to present it some house amongst that yr’s crowded slate. Envisioned as a spectacular visible tour de pressure, the film was additionally initially meant for an IMAX launch, with Warners releasing a featurette extolling the VFX staff’s efforts to craft a surprising 3D expertise. However when “Pan” debuted on October 9, 2015, it did so in common theaters and never on IMAX screens.

That anticlimactic debut was just the start of Joe Wright and WB’s troubles. “Pan” made what The Hollywood Reporter dubbed a “disastrous” $15.3 million in its opening weekend, in the end happening to gross simply $35 million domestically. In keeping with THR, Warner’s international advertising and marketing spend was $125 million, which introduced the overall price of “Pan” to $275 million. The film’s $151.5 million international take was, then, greater than slightly disappointing — particularly since Warner Bros. had additionally seen the Henry Cavill-led “The Man From U.N.C.L.E” bomb at the box office earlier that very same yr.

In fact, the important drubbing “Pan” acquired did not assist. Reviewers had been cruel of their assessments of the movie, which presently bears a lowly 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics took specific challenge with the extent of the movie’s CGI work. Because the Times’ Kate Muir wrote, “The overuse of CGI results in ‘Pan’ is exhausting and incomprehensible, even inside the crazed logic of a fairytale.” Elsewhere, “Pan” truly had Donald Clarke of the Irish Times craving for a reappraisal of Steven Spielberg’s “Hook,” a film the director himself had no faith in even while shooting it. 

Likewise, the “constructive” evaluations for “Pan” may barely be described as begrudging, with Robbie Collin of the Every day Telegraph writing, “Jubilantly uncool […] maybe the most effective compliments you could possibly pay it’s that it may have been written 100 years in the past.” The very fact this evaluate has been deemed “Recent” by the RT curators may say extra in regards to the website itself, although. Maybe probably the most damning indictment, nevertheless, got here from Peter Travers. In his one-star Rolling Stone evaluate, he described Wright’s movie as a “joyless, juiceless […] theme-park journey from hell.” If I had been Warners, I’d’ve put that final half on the posters simply to drum up some enterprise from confused moviegoers.

In April 2015, The Hollywood Reporter famous that Warner Bros. was getting ready to “flood the market” that summer time with a slate of 9 movies designed to fill the hole left by the absence of Christopher Nolan’s “Darkish Knight” trilogy and the “Harry Potter” movies. On the time, Warner’s home distribution chief Dan Fellman advised the outlet, “Will probably be powerful work, however I feel it would repay.”

In some methods, WB’s strategy did repay. The Dwayne Johnson-led “San Andreas,” produced on a price range of $110 million, raked in $474 million worldwide. And whereas “Mad Max: Fury Highway” did not fare fairly as properly, making $380 million worldwide on a $150 million price range, it did at the very least garner important acclaim and stays the most effective movies in the “Mad Max” saga. However one big-budget Warner mission failed spectacularly on each a important and business entrance.

A Peter Pan origin story starring Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard the Pirate alongside Levi Miller as Peter Pan does not sound like it will have been an out and out catastrophe. But it surely was, and it misplaced Warner Bros. a heck of some huge cash.

“Pan” was a Peter Pan origin story from Joe Wright, who had beforehand directed a Finest Image Oscar nominee with “Atonement,” a novel motion thriller with “Hanna,” and a strong historic drama that additionally garnered Academy Award nominations with “Anna Karenina.” As such, there was no indication that his Peter Pan origin story would show to be as huge a flop as it will definitely was, however “Pan” failed at the box office in spectacular style.

2015 was filled with field workplace heavy hitters, from “Star Wars: Episode VII — The Drive Awakens,” which made greater than $2 billion worldwide, to “Jurassic World,” which wasn’t far behind with $1.6 billion. Sadly, such a stacked yr left little room for Wright’s movie to succeed, which for Warner Bros. meant dropping a large chunk of change.

The studio had given Wright $150 million to make his movie, and that is just about exactly what the movie made when it comes to its international field workplace receipts. That may not appear to be a disaster however contemplating studios sometimes get half of the home field workplace and fewer for some worldwide markets, plus the very fact Warners would have spent a big quantity on advertising and marketing, it meant the studio misplaced some huge cash — roughly $150 million in line with studies on the time.

What was the issue? Properly, other than 2015 being so stacked with blockbuster choices, critics largely agreed: “Pan” was simply unhealthy.

Initially deliberate for a June 2015 launch, “Pan” was shunted again to October, ostensibly to present it some house amongst that yr’s crowded slate. Envisioned as a spectacular visible tour de pressure, the film was additionally initially meant for an IMAX launch, with Warners releasing a featurette extolling the VFX staff’s efforts to craft a surprising 3D expertise. However when “Pan” debuted on October 9, 2015, it did so in common theaters and never on IMAX screens.

That anticlimactic debut was just the start of Joe Wright and WB’s troubles. “Pan” made what The Hollywood Reporter dubbed a “disastrous” $15.3 million in its opening weekend, in the end happening to gross simply $35 million domestically. In keeping with THR, Warner’s international advertising and marketing spend was $125 million, which introduced the overall price of “Pan” to $275 million. The film’s $151.5 million international take was, then, greater than slightly disappointing — particularly since Warner Bros. had additionally seen the Henry Cavill-led “The Man From U.N.C.L.E” bomb at the box office earlier that very same yr.

In fact, the important drubbing “Pan” acquired did not assist. Reviewers had been cruel of their assessments of the movie, which presently bears a lowly 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics took specific challenge with the extent of the movie’s CGI work. Because the Times’ Kate Muir wrote, “The overuse of CGI results in ‘Pan’ is exhausting and incomprehensible, even inside the crazed logic of a fairytale.” Elsewhere, “Pan” truly had Donald Clarke of the Irish Times craving for a reappraisal of Steven Spielberg’s “Hook,” a film the director himself had no faith in even while shooting it. 

Likewise, the “constructive” evaluations for “Pan” may barely be described as begrudging, with Robbie Collin of the Every day Telegraph writing, “Jubilantly uncool […] maybe the most effective compliments you could possibly pay it’s that it may have been written 100 years in the past.” The very fact this evaluate has been deemed “Recent” by the RT curators may say extra in regards to the website itself, although. Maybe probably the most damning indictment, nevertheless, got here from Peter Travers. In his one-star Rolling Stone evaluate, he described Wright’s movie as a “joyless, juiceless […] theme-park journey from hell.” If I had been Warners, I’d’ve put that final half on the posters simply to drum up some enterprise from confused moviegoers.