“You’ve got to remember that this movie will be a big international play,” says Fellman. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, a PG adventure pic from New Line, opened to a so-so $27.3 million domestically in February 2012, then pulled in about $326 million worldwide, more than two-thirds of that coming from overseas. The hope for Jack is that the international business will be strong enough to ensure that it will break even - someday. STORY: Jack the Giant Slayer: Film Review That film, along with Disney’s Alice in Wonderland reboot (which grossed $1 billion in 2010), proved that summerlike event pics could work in late winter and early spring. Its 300 debuted at $70.9 million in early March 2007 on its way to $456.1 million worldwide. Warners has had plenty of success with spring releases Clash of the Titans (2010) and its 2012 sequel.
Another option would have been to open the movie March 22, but Warners thought the earlier date might work better internationally and also was worried about losing the family audience to DreamWorks Animation’s The Croods if it went head-to-head with that movie. But with spring and summer chockablock with movies, Warners decided its best shot was now.Ī source with knowledge of the situation acknowledges, “Nobody’s excited about this date,” and anticipates plenty of second-guessing. Singer ( X-Men) is said to be unhappy with the March release date because he does not want to be anywhere near Disney’s strongly tracking Oz the Great and Powerful, which opens March 8 and is more family-friendly with its PG rating. He’s hoping Jack can bow to more than $30 million in North America, but competitors are skeptical. “I wouldn’t take a 5-year-old, but if you have a 10- or 11-year-old boy who likes looking at giants, what more do you want?”įellman takes heart in improved tracking in the week leading up to the release, though the numbers still point to a soft domestic opening in light of the film’s cost and hefty ad spend. Warners head of domestic distribution Dan Fellman says the final product (the original title, Jack the Giant Killer, was softened) is a family play, even if it’s rated PG-13. The film was “too fanboy and not enough family,” as one insider puts it, adding, “It’s a very hard needle to thread when you hire Bryan Singer to do a take on a fairy tale.” With the project pushed, the studio took the opportunity to do some reshoots. Insiders have blamed the delay on difficulty completing the extensive visual effects, but sources also say that the tone of the movie wasn’t hitting the mark. The studio and Legendary Pictures spent nearly $300 million to make and market - including the $195 million production budget - the darker take on Jack and the Beanstalk that was conceived as a summer popcorn movie to be released in June 2012.
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