Disney could lose $190 million on The Lone Ranger

According to reports, Disney lost their shirt and panties on the The Lone Ranger. It cost $250 million just to make and no one liked it, and now analysts say their losses could be as high as $190 million. That’s enough to buy 19 million tuxedo t-shirts!

Box-office experts and rival-studio insiders had told The Hollywood Reporter that the loss for the film could approach or even surpass $150 million based on final opening numbers, though they emphasized that Disney likely would weather the storm thanks to summer box office hits Iron Man 3 and Monsters University.

Wunderlich Securities analyst Matthew Harrigan predicted a write-off in that same range, highlighting that it would come in below the company’s big loss on John Carter last year.

“…the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced film is now apt to generate a $150 million vicinity write-off for Disney,” he wrote in a repor. “Still less than John Carter’s $200 million.”

Lazard Capital Markets analyst Barton Crockett in his investor update used the headline “Lonely Ranger” [Get it? He’s lonely because she ain’t hangin’ with no broke n*ggaz, so to speak] and predicted a possible write-down closer to John Carter’s.

Crockett said. “…based on our math, could be pacing for a $190 million write-off.” He had previously predicted a loss of $113 million on the film. That could mean an additional 3 cents per share downside to Disney’s earnings, he said.

Blah blah blah, that’s not all of the analysts, but the analysts quoted in the story predict anywhere from a $100 million to a $190 million write-down, while all of them still rate Disney’s stock as a “buy.” I guess if their stock doesn’t lose value, it’s not so much a “loss” as it is a waste.

This write-down stuff is hard to understand. Disney claimed a $200 million write-down on John Carter, which cost a reported $250 million to make and grossed $282 million worldwide. That sounds like profit, but advertising supposedly costs as much as production. BUT, when you’re talking Disney, half they money they’re spending to advertise is probably going to their own subsidiaries anyway. Does that count as loss? Probably only if you’re waiting for them to pay you net profit on something (the infamous “Hollywood Accounting“). Does a $200 write down on a $282 million-grossing movie that mean John Carter cost $482 million to make and market? That sounds like so much that it couldn’t possibly be true. But then again, anything more than a thousand bucks sounds like some Jabberwocky shit to me anyway, so what do I know. Pay me fifty bucks to eat this cat turd, how about that.

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