BEIJING, March 20 (Xinhuanet) -- Walt Disney Studios announced on Monday that the studio expects to take a write-down of about 200 million U.S. dollars as the result of the expensive adventure movie "John Carter."
The film has so far generated 184 million dollars in ticket sales worldwide. It is far from satisfactory considering the movie's estimated 250 million dollars of production budget, plus 100 million more on marketing.
"John Carter" reportedly needs to earn at least 600 million dollars worldwide just to break even since studios split box-office grosses with theater owners.
That loss is greater than some analysts expected, and it will cause the studio to record an operating loss of 80 million to 120 million dollars for its second quarter, which ends on March 31, Disney said.
Disney’s studio recorded an operating profit of 77 million dollars in the second quarter of last year.
"John Carter," which was directed by Andrew Stanton and tells about a former military captain who is transported to Mars, will go down as one of the biggest flops in Hollywood history