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The 5 Biggest Disappointments of the Summer Box Office and the

Company That Lost Big

Terminator Genisys

• Made on a reported $155 million production budget, Genisys had grossed roughly $325 million prior to its August debut in China.

• Upon opening in the country, Terminator Genisys delivered a record $27 million opening day, elevating a would-be flop to the status of mild disappointment.

Terminator Genisys

• Chinese performance pushed the film’s sales to roughly $410 million, but whether or not the new Terminator series will be continued is uncertain. International sales were impressive, but the movie did poorly in America.

• Terminator Genisys has grossed roughly $90 million domestically, opening to a paltry $27 million weekend and winning the approval of just 26% of Rotten Tomatoes critics.

Mad Max: Fury Road

• Time Warner’s Mad Max: Fury Road was made on a $150 million production

budget and was promoted with a sizable ad campaign.• Its global sales haul of roughly $374 million likely

puts the picture in the break-even range—

disappointing given the film’s expenses and favorable reception.

Mad Max: Fury Road• 98% of critics on Rotten

Tomatoes gave Fury Road a positive score.

• While the movie did not deliver strong box office performance relative to

budget, a sequel may still be viable thanks to favorable audience reception and the

potential for strong home format sales.

Ted 2• Ted 2’s worldwide

gross of roughly $190 million on a

production budget of $68 million doesn’t

qualify it as a flop for Comcast and

Universal, but the R-rated comedy sequel

performed quite poorly in comparison to the first film in the

series.

Ted 2• In 2012, Ted did roughly $550 million in global ticket sales–

$230 million in America and $320 million in foreign

markets.• Rotten Tomatoes

score for Ted 2 was 45%, while Ted

scored 67% approval.

Tomorrowland• Made on an estimated $190

million production budget,

Tomorrowland has grossed roughly $208

million worldwide.• Disney’s movie joins

flops The Lone Ranger and John Carter on the Mouse House’s

list of recent live action adventure movie missteps.

Tomorrowland

• The movie’s box office results are estimated

to cause Disney to write down a loss

between $120 million and $140 million.

Fantastic Four• Production reported to be $120 million, with the film’s international

gross at roughly $147 million.• Just 9% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave Fantastic Four a

positive score.• The movie had a troubled

production, and director Josh Trank publicly blamed Fox for the film’s

quality prior to release.

Fantastic FourFantastic Four’s

domestic opening weekend came in at just $25.7 million.Four weeks after Four’s August 7

release date, the picture had done just

over $53 million in American ticket sales.

Summer retrospective and a company that lost big

• Other disappointments of the summer included Warner’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E and Sony’s Pixels, thought the latter is likely to at least break even after it

launches in China in mid-September. Overall, the summer box office season did not see many films suffer tremendous underperformance.

• Disney suffered a pretty sizable bomb with Tomorrowland. The film’s oversize budget and weak audience pull made it the season’s biggest loser in terms of pure

dollar amount. Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron also made less than many had expected, even though it grossed roughly $1.4 billion worldwide and was one of summer’s biggest hits. Ultron failing to match the box office of 2012’s Avengers is

a small but notable stumble. Even so, its performance, along with strong ticket sales from Pixar’s Inside Out, soften the Tomorroland blow and keep Disney out of

the “loser” category.• So…which company had the worst summer?

Fox loses big with Fantastic Four• While Disney’s Tomorrowland generated big losses, Fantastic Four stands as the biggest

disappointment of the summer. • The Fantastic Four license could be significant asset for Fox, but the company has been unable to make

it work. Fox has made three Fantastic Four films in the last decade—none big hits, and its most recent attempt is the by far the least critically and commercially successful of the bunch.

• The company planned to release a sequel in 2017, but the odds of that happening after the film’s poor performance are slim. Fox loses the Fantastic Four movie license to Disney if it doesn’t produce a new film in the franchise within an agreed upon time period, probably somewhere between 8 and 10 years,

but this summer’s flop makes a reboot more likely. Fox could also be looking at a crossover with its own X-Men films or even Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe.

• Expectations for poor performance from Fantastic Four likely factored into Fox’s decision to lower its earnings target for the current fiscal year from the mid-$7 billion range to mid-single-digit growth over

$6.49 billion• The Fantastic floundering puts extra pressure on Fox to succeed at growing its X-Men film franchise.

The company needs a strong performance from its film business as it weathers turbulence in cable and invests in foreign growth.

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