We talk about domestic box office a lot, but international markets are where the real money is made. In fact, of the 25-highest-grossing movies worldwide, the smallest percentage of total budget earned internationally was 59 percent. This could go a long way to explaining why movies aren’t better, since with few exceptions, broad strokes are what play in foreign markets (and/or are what studios think will play, and thus spend a buttload of marketing money on). You know how the French are, they can barely tell a skunk from a cat that got paint spilled on it.

Pajiba already did the heavy lifting here, so I’m just going to have a cigarette and let the block quote do the work.

First, some fun facts: Internationally, the top ten all-time movies added two new entries this year, The Avengers at number three, and The Dark Knight Rises at number seven. Although it didn’t perform as well as The Dark Knight domestically, Rises bested it internationally by $200 million.

Which could add some credence to the theory that the Aurora shooting hurt TDKR‘s box office. Not that that even rates in terms of important impacts of the Aurora shooting, but there you go.

Meanwhile, Skyfall became the highest gross Bond film to date (and the first to cross $1 billion worldwide). Among the year’s top 25 films internationally, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (61 percent) and The Hunger Games (59 percent) were the movies with the highest percentage of their box office from North America, while The Intouchables (97 percent) and Ice Age: Continental Drift (81 percent) were the two films with the most box-office proceeds from overseas.

The highest grossing original property was Brave, followed by Ted, which was also the highest grossing comedy of the year. Titanic 3D was the highest grossing film not originally released in 2012, and two films considered box-office failures in the United States (Battleship and John Carter) both broke the top 25.

1. The Avengers— $1.5 billion

2. The Dark Knight Rises — $1.081 billion

3. Skyfall — $1 billion

4. Ice Age: Continental Drift — $875 million

5. Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part II — $799 million

6. The Amazing Spider-Man — $752 million

7. Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted — $742 million

8. The Hobbit: Unexpected Journey — $692 million [so far]

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Andrew Stanton made his live-action debut with John Carter earlier this year, which, despite being what I thought was a pretty enjoyable movie, lost Disney $200 million dollars. (Probably on account of the dumb title and poor marketing, which were supposedly dictated by Stanton himself). So, how does a director redeem himself after something like that? He tucks his tail back under his scrote and agrees to direct a sequel of his most successful film, of course. Still waiting on that Seventh Sense movie, M. Night.

Andrew Stanton is heading back to animation, signing on to direct a sequel to Pixar’s Finding Nemo, the 2003 modern classic he co-directed.
Victoria Strouse, who wrote the 2008 Black list script The Apostles of Infinite Love, is writing the script and Lindsey Collins is producing. A 2016 release date is being eyed.
The Toy Story sequels were considered exceptions to the rules but Cars 2 was seen as a pure commercial play, even by Pixar’s own animators, who weren’t happy to work on it. [THR]

I love Finding Nemo so much that I would probably fight anyone who disparaged it (unless they looked tougher than me), but even I’m not so hot on the idea for a sequel. I mean what’s going to happen, he gets lost again? (I know, I know, they tried it in The Hangover II). Still, I can’t think of much that’s less in my wheelhouse than an adaptation of a homo-erotic pulp novel from the turn of the century, and Stanton still managed to make me enjoy John Carter. Stanton hasn’t steered me wrong yet, so I see no reason not to try to kick the football on this one. And if it works out, I’ll be that much closer to selling Pixar this pitch for Weekend at Burn-E’s. It’s about me and the welding robot going on a ski trip to Aspen and having adventures.

[banner picture source. Is there anything cuter than Asian children in costumes? I say no.]

And everything is blue for him and his self/ and everybody around 'cause he ain't got/ nobody/ to listen/ I'm blue da ba dee da ba die...

Even the most jaded of film fans will find something to like with this week’s new DVDs. We’ve got one of the biggest box office flops of the year so far. We’ve got real Navy SEALs for the men and Ryan Reynolds for the ladies.  We’ve got Muslims and Jews and Bears. Oh my, we’ve got Christian Slater and Tom Arnold. We’ve got some big feet, and most importantly, we’ve got -after a nine week absence- the triumphant return of our favorite bad ass, Danny Trejo.

The DVDs:
John Carter
Safe House
Act Of Valor
Machine Gun Preacher
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
Act Of Vengeance
American Animal
Bad Ass
Hatfields & McCoys: Bad Blood
Hit So Hard
The Yankles
Knockdown
Bear Nation
Rogue River
The Collapsed
Normandy
Champion Road: Arena
Lost Woods
Dear God No!
The Tale Of The Voodoo Prostitute

There really are some unbelievable movies this week. Keep reading on the next page and we’ll go through them, one by one. If you’re in a rush and need to watch a movie right now, click here for the Netflix suggestions. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Proving to the bizzy yet again that the C-Tates = C-Notes, 21 Jump Street took home an estimated $35 million in North America at the box office over the weekend, the second biggest opening for an R-rated comedy released outside of summer (behind Jackass 3D). C-Tates joints now make up two of the top four opening weekends of 2012 (21 Jump Street at number four, The Vow at two) and the number two movie of the year (The Vow). SMASHIN BOX ALL DAY, SON, HOO! HOO!

The action comedy also compares well against other TV adaptations from the past decade. It wound up slightly below Get Smart ($38.7 million) and S.W.A.T. ($37.1 million), but it was higher than The Dukes of Hazzard ($30.7 million), Starsky and Hutch ($28.1 million), Miami Vice ($25.7 million) and The A-Team ($25.7 million). [BoxOfficeMojo]

Meanwhile, John Carter dropped another 55 percent for $53 million total (and $179 million worldwide), but with a budget rumored to be as high as $350 million, it all but guarantees that there won’t be a sequel, and locks up a worst-marketing-campaign-of-the-year award for Disney. Never underestimate the power of an amazingly bland title. You think Avatar would’ve made a billion dollars if it had been called “Jake Sully?” The sad thing is, I saw John Carter over the weekend and it was actually pretty good; certainly as good as one could possibly expect an adaptation of 100-year-old sci-fi pulp to be. Now, Battleship is probably going to make more money, which is as good evidence as any that God is dead.

Sidenote for people who also saw John Carter: Am I the only one who thinks it’s weird that John Carter seemingly fought an entire whole space war without ever finding out whether the alien princess he fell in love with actually had a functioning vagina? I think it would’ve been more realistic if he was like “One question before I save your planet, Mars lady: Do you have a pussy?” Or maybe there’s a twist ending, where after all he’s done she’s like “What’s wrong, John Carter? Does my gnarled crotch nubbin compare unfavorably to your Earth girls? I tried to make it extra mucousy for you.” And then the credits roll as John Carter vomits into a space pillow for ten minutes.

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