Mirror, mirror on the tits... I mean, wall. WALL!

Relativity’s Mirror Mirror, directed by Tarsem and starring Julia Roberts, cost approximately $85 million to make and has grossed nearly twice that thanks to a strong international showing. But here in the States, where Mirror Mirror only made $61 million, it’s considered a dud. So the pressure of this classic tale’s success now rests on the shoulders of Snow White and The Huntsman, which hits theaters on June 1.

However, Disney doesn’t really seem to care about Universal’s pending success or demise, because the House of Mouse is calling it quits on its own Snow White update, The Order of the Seven, which re-imagines Snow and the dwarves as samurais. Damn, I was hoping for unicorn cyborgs.

This film had Soairse Ronan aboard to play the lead female in a film that took place in Asia, with a samurai theme and an international cast. The project has been gestating at the studio for a decade… the picture imploded over a budget in the $150 million range or higher… (Via Deadline)

I don’t understand why this had to be a Snow White film. Why couldn’t it just be a story about a Japanese girl who is cast from her kingdom by an evil emperor, only to join up with a band of shamed or ronin samurai who train her to fight and arm her as they impossibly take on a massive army to overcome and save the kingdom and free the enslaved people?

Hold on, someone in a limousine just threw a brick with a note tied to it through my window.

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In a move that will come as a surprise to only the most dullardly of beef-headed lumpskulls, Disney CEO Bob Iger today announced plans to develop a sequel to The Avengers. I could’ve sworn they’d already discussed plans for Avengers 2, but it could’ve just been the multiple, blatant sequel-setting, post-credits scenes, or the fact that Marvel had been teasing an Avengers movie since Iron Man 1, or maybe just ’cause I drink.

An Avengers sequel? Are you kidding? The first one made $207 million this weekend, we’ll be lucky to get less than seven of them. X-Men made $54 million in its opening weekend, and they’ve already made five of those. They’ll be making Avengers sequels for the next decade, even if they have to get Brett Ratner’s cousin to direct one.

Still, I enjoyed The Avengers quite a bit, so I’m cautiously optimistic for part two. And I’ve got my fingers crossed for a Thorgi cameo. It’s never too early to start the letter-writing campaign.

John Carter, following a refreshing dip in the tears of his investors

Rumors of what it cost to make an market John Carter ran as high as $350 million. Daily Beast said it would have to make $400 million to break even, and so far has only made $180 million worldwide. Still, hardly anyone expected it to be the biggest money loser of all time, with Disney projecting a loss of 200 million Earth dollars.

“In light of the theatrical performance of John Carter ($184 million global box office), we expect the film to generate an operating loss of approximately $200 million during our second fiscal quarter ending March 31. As a result, our current expectation is that the Studio segment will have an operating loss of between $80 and $120 million for the second quarter. As we look forward to the second half of the year, we are excited about the upcoming releases of The Avengers and Brave, which we believe have tremendous potential to drive value for the Studio and the rest of the company.”

Disney’s $200M write down for John Carter appears to be the biggest loss to date for a single film — exceeding the inflation adjusted $147M deficit from Cutthroat Island, the 1995 film that starred Geena Davis and proved to be the last straw for Carolco Pictures which went out of business. [Deadline]

Ouch. It’s a bummer, because while the marketing was amazingly terrible, and focused mostly on the title, which was awful, I thought the movie was actually pretty fun. And in case you were wondering how this would effect Disney, since the health of vaguely evil, multi-national corporations is always of paramount concern, don’t be. Deadline points out the film division accounts for only 7% of its profits, and that Disney shares were only down 1% after the announcement. Still, a $200 million loss is a lot to absorb. At this rate, they might have to have James Cameron pawn one of the yachts he uses to hunt people for sport.

“Have you $300 million?”

John Carter, having cost $350 million to make and market and earning only about $30 million its opening weekend (albeit another $70 million internationally), appears likely to join the grand pantheon of colossal box office flops. This New York Times article from earlier this week was already pulling out the Ishtar comparisons.

Nevertheless, the movie has its pocket of fanboys who would like to see a sequel, including this Forbes writer who is openly campaigning for a follow-up to get made. To that end, John Carter fans have taken to the place where pointless causes go to languish annoyingly and mostly die (except for that one about Betty White getting to host SNL): Facebook.

The Facebook group called “Take Me Back To Barsoom, I Want John Carter To Have a Sequel” boasts about 2,500 members, a laughably small number for a group trying to convince Disney to ignore losing several hundred million dollars to invest heavily in a similar unprofitable project. But, hey, they made a trailer!

Director Andrew Stanton, who also did Finding Nemo and Wall-E for Pixar, has already begun work on the sequel and all involved parties would likely come back if Disney wanted to give it another go. Of course, that ignores economic realities and when a studio sinks a third of a billion dollars into a film, that’s not a consideration easily ignored. A Hollywood Reporter piece speculated that the movie will need to earn another $600 million for a sequel to happen. That’s only $240,000 per Facebook group member. You guys got this!

Life is unfaaaaair...

This was the weekend John Carter finally opened, when we’d find out whether its huge budget (rumored to be $200 – $250 million- UPDATE: $350 million to make and market, according to the NY Times) was worth it or a waste, when we’d learn whether Disney’s “make sure everyone knows his name is John Carter!” marketing strategy worked (instead of perhaps pointing out that it was directed by the guy from Wall E and Finding Nemo and written by a Pulitzer Prize winner). Final tally? $30.6 million on 3,749 screens. Good enough for second place behind The Lorax and the fifth highest opening of 2012 (two of the top five being The Lorax), but low enough to still be considered “a huge disappointment.”

John Carter opened to an estimated $30.6 million from 3,749 locations. That’s lower than practically any similar movie, beginning with those that came out around the same time of year. It was obviously way off from 300 ($70.9 million) and Watchmen ($55.2 million)—what’s more concerning, though, is that it was even a tad below 10,000 B.C. ($35.9 million) and Battle: Los Angeles ($35.6 million), both of which were modest movies in comparison. [BoxOfficeMojo]

Ouch. Well, when you put it that way…

One of the big questions was why they changed the title from “John Carter of Mars” to just “John Carter,” which may not be the only reason for the disappointing box office, but certainly couldn’t have helped. Here’s what Andrew Stanton had to say:

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