• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Hollywood Reporter: King Arthur could lose $150M for WB and Village Roadshow

K

kswiston

Member
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword debuted this weekend, making $15M domestic and about $30M overseas from 51 markets. China's debut was only $5M, and the film is unlikely to get much higher than $10M there. Even Valerian is going to have a tough time topping it for bomb of the summer.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...-arthur-could-lose-150m-falling-sword-1003638

King Arthur, starring Charlie Hunnam in the titular role, could lose $150 million or more for partners Warners and Village Roadshow after costing $175 million to make before a major marketing spend, according to box-office experts who say the movie isn't likely to earn more than $145 million globally (studios only get half back in box-office receipts in the U.S, and even less overseas). RatPac-Dune Entertainment — the film financing entity launched in 2013 by Steve Mnuchin (who is now U.S. Treasury secretary), James Packer and filmmaker Brett Ratner — also has a stake in the movie.

A Warner Bros. spokesman disputed that the loss could climb to $150 million for the various partners.

"King Arthur is a paint-by-numbers Hollywood disaster — wrong director, wrong cast, wrong script, etc.," says box-office analyst Jeff Bock. "The whole Game of Thrones-on-steroids direction the studio went with from the get-go just didn't get anyone psyched to see this."

Bock, along with others, says Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy, Pacific Rim) wasn't enough of a movie star to carry the film. "TV stardom is one thing; for these epics, you need an equally epic lead performance," says Bock.

Marking the first major miss of summer 2017, King Arthur also boasts one of the lowest domestic openings of all time for a big-budget major studio title after Monster Trucks, the movie that prompted Paramount to take a $125 million write-down even before debuting to $11 million in January of this year, and Disney's 2011 Mars Needs Moms ($6.9 million).

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword unfurls during a time of transition for Warner Bros., where the production regime that oversaw the film's long road to the big screen has been ousted in favor of new leadership.

The coming weeks will be crucial for Warners' marketing and production team as it launches summer tentpole Wonder Woman on June 2 and Christopher Nolan's World War II action-epic Dunkirk on July 21.

"It isn't particularly surprising that King Arthur flopped in North America. I don't remember the last time a medieval film was successful in this market. The story just doesn't seem to resonate here anymore, and someone tries to resurrect it seemingly every five to 10 years," says Wall Street analyst Eric Handler of MKM Partners. "What I did find surprising was the weak numbers internationally, particularly in Europe."
Click to expand...

I trimmed about half of the article, so follow the link if you want to read the whole thing.

Many people (including a lot of movie-GAF) were expecting poor results for King Arthur. However, the previously rumored budget was a lot closer to $100M, and the film ended up bombing even worse than expected. Analysts were expecting a $25M weekend domestically, and much more overseas one week from release.

Ghost in the Shell is no longer the highest profile bomb of 2017.
 
K

Kart94

Banned
HaHa wow...Warner Bros are crazy. The trailers look like a disaster. Why is every Studio trying so hard to copy MCU and doing it so wrong. Make a few good standalone movies and then make the team up. Even the DCEU is floundering badly.

Please don't mess up Aladdin Guy Ritchie.
 
S

SpaceWolf

Banned
Up there with Pan and Gods of Egypt for me under the category of "Films where I don't understand how the hell they got greenlit with such an excessive budget in the first place".
 
B

BoogieWoogie

Banned
No more King Arthur/Peter Pan/IP Free movies please. They don't work like Marvel does, no matter how hard you try to force it.

Did King Arthur have post credit scenes?
 
V

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
I don't get how some of these movies get green lit with the budgets they are at when your average GAFer can see bomba from a mile away.
 
M

Minarik

Member
Good, stop making bad movies. I love that the internet exists now so studios can't put out trash anymore without it getting shredded in readily available reviews.
 
S

SpaceWolf

Banned
arts&crafts said:
I was just thinking yesterday how Jude Law has fallen so far.
Click to expand...

Did Jude Law ever climb that high to begin with? I mean, he's obviously a very famous actor...but he's been in a lot of dud films.

220px-Skycaptainposter.jpg


Anyone remember this film? Angelina Jolie was in it, I think. She had an eyepatch?
 
Monocle

Monocle

Member
It's not a bad movie. The studio should have known better than to consider it as anything more than a minor fantasy film, though. It was never going to be a huge hit.
 
K

Kart94

Banned
SpaceWolf said:
Was Jude Law ever climb that high to begin with? I mean, he's obviously a very famous actor...but he's been in a lot of dud films.

220px-Skycaptainposter.jpg


Anyone remember this film? Angelina Jolie was in it, I think. She had an eyepatch?
Click to expand...

Does anyone know if that is any good? I looks kind of interesting from what little i see of it.
 
P

paragonpro

Banned
Kart94 said:
HaHa wow...Warner Bros are crazy. The trailers look like a disaster. Why is every Studio trying so hard to copy MCU and doing it so wrong. Make a few good standalone movies and then make the team up. Even the DCEU is floundering badly.

Please don't mess up Aladdin Guy Ritchie.
Click to expand...

If we consider man of steel, suicide squad, and bvs commercial flops in some universe than sure.
 
L

Latvian Hitman

Member
"It isn't particularly surprising that King Arthur flopped in North America. I don't remember the last time a medieval film was successful in this market. The story just doesn't seem to resonate here anymore, and someone tries to resurrect it seemingly every five to 10 years," says Wall Street analyst Eric Handler of MKM Partners.
Click to expand...

I disagree. I think the story would still resonate well enough to allow blockbuster success if a film were handled properly. The issue isn't one of story so much as tone. People don't want a campy or overdriven modernized take on the legend. Get a big name director to helm a film similar in tone and scope to Boorman's Excalibur with a few big stars in the cast and you'll get butts in seats.
 
C

canoli2006

Member
SpaceWolf said:
Executive 1: We need a new franchise. But a franchise based on a familiar IP to help minimise the risk! What have we got?

Executive 2: ....King Arthur?

Executive 1: (Sighs, reluctantly picks up phone)
Click to expand...

You can insert The Mummy in there as well. It'll probably do better than King Arthur but no one is really asking for a Mummy reboot.
 
SlimySnake

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Movie was fantastic. It's snatch meets game of thrones. guy ritchie directed the shit out of this.

That said, audiences ditching guy ritchie after sherlock holmes is bizarre. maybe they needed a more bankable hero like RDJ. but i just dont know who that would be in this day and age.
 
A

Alrus

Member
I don't understand why any execs thought giving this goofy looking movie a 175M budget was a good idea.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Weekend Box Office - Aug 2 - 4, 2024 - Trapped between a twist and a despicable film
30
2K
Jinzo Prime replied
The Mario movie set to cruise past a billion at the box office and become the bigget video game movie by a huge margin
2 3 4
183
15K
jason10mm replied
  • Locked
Kotaku: Sony's Concord might be the biggest entertainment failure of all time, so why wasn't it news?
2 3 4
183
11K
Syphon Filter replied
Bloomberg: Behind ‘Suicide Squad,’ the Year’s Biggest Video-Game Flop
2 3
143
10K
MALpractice311 replied
WB Discovery has yet to green light The Batman 2, Hamada could become DC’s Feige
16
2K
Madflavor replied
Top Bottom