Well, I doubt that anyone at the Walt Disney Company is going to forget “The Alamo” anytime soon.
$9.2 million. This major motion picture — which supposedly cost $107 million to produce and an additional $30 million to market — took in just an estimated $9.2 million during its first weekend in domestic release. (Why estimated? Because Disney won’t actually have the really-for-real weekend gross information in hand ’til sometime later this morning. When the 2609 theaters around the U.S. that are currently showing this John Lee Hancock film check in the Mouse House to report the exact number of tickets they sold to Sunday night’s final showings.)
How big a box office bomb are we talking here? Well, let me try and put this in perspective for you folks: You know what film “The Alamo” supposedly tied with at the box office this past weekend? “Johnson Family Vacation.” That Fox Searchlight comedy starring Cedric the Entertainer. Which allegedly only cost $12 million to make and $8 million to market.
You wanna know what’s really terrible about “John Family Vacation” supposedly tying “The Alamo” at the box office this past weekend? This Fox Searchlight release is only playing on 1317 screens nationwide. Which is virtually half the number of theaters that Disney’s big budget release is currently playing in. But this Cedric the Entertainer comedy still managed to sell as many tickets as the Mouse’s mega-marketed movie
So — if we follow the industry rule of thumb (which is — if you multiply your opening weekend take by 4 — that typically gives you a pretty good ballpark figure for what your film’s final domestic gross will be) — both “The Alamo” and “Johnson Family Vacation” will eventually earn $35 — $40 million during their stateside run.
Which is great news for Fox Searchlight. That means this Cedric the Entertainer comedy is almost certain to recover all of its production costs during its domestic run. In fact — were you factor in what “Johnson Family Vacation” will earn from its international run as well as its pay-per-view and DVD sales — this low cost comedy will probably make a pretty tidy little profit for its producers.
Whereas “The Alamo” … following the formula I listed above, there’s just no way that this major box office disappointment is ever going to come close to recovering its production costs. Which is perhaps why officials at the Walt Disney Company are already reportedly talking about writing off this entire film as a loss.
Then — when you factor in this past weekend’s rather disappointing news concerning “Home on the Range” (Business for Disney’s last traditionally animated [for a while, anyway] film fell off by more than 40% from last weekend’s levels. Which means that “HOTR” ‘s word-of-mouth isn’t nearly as strong as the Mouse had hoped it would be. Which means that it’s looking less and less likely that “Home” will be able to pull in anything more than $50 million during its domestic run.) — you can bet that Michael Eisner’s in for a really blue Monday.
So what happens now? According to the folks I spoke with yesterday, we should look for Disney to start seriously scaling back its marketing campaign for “The Alamo” by the middle of this week. With much of the television advertising time that the Mouse had already bought to help promote this John Lee Hancock film to be shifted over to “Home on the Range.” (With the hope that — with a wee bit more promotion — that animated film might be able to pull in some more dough over the April School vacation period.)
As for Eisner … look, Disney’s CEO knew that “The Alamo” was in serious trouble last year. Which is why he ordered that this big budget feature be pulled from its initial release date (Christmas Day 2003) and be significantly reworked. But even after a reported 45 minutes worth of footage hit the cutting room floor, this would-be epic was still DOA when it arrived in American’s multiplexes.
And — given that it’s doubtful that “The Alamo” will have much in the way of box office appeal when this John Lee Hancock film heads overseas later this year — Michael Eisner may find himself really identifying with Davy (“He prefers David”) Crockett in the weeks ahead.
Only — instead of Santa Ana and the Mexican Army — it’ll be Roy Disney and the folks at “Save Disney” who will give Michael something to remember.
Your thoughts?