It is a Bruckheimer production and a collaboration of the National Treasure makers. It has Disney releasing it and they have given it a solid marketing campaign as well as a prime July release date. The budget is $150 million...

And yet it looks like it'll struggle to get to $60-70 million. Why?


I'd say it would have been better off with a holiday season release date. Also Nicholas Cage doesn't exactly seem to be hot property anymore aside from the National Treasure series.

It had all the ingredients to fail.

1) bad release date where it was clearly going to be overshadowed + Despicable Me breaking out in the end
2) it didn't look fun at all
3) it really did look similar to Percy Jackson

It's a fantasy movie that was released in the summertime.

Release date.

Should have come out in November or December.

Overcrowded market. Bad release date. Not marketed well.

Nick Cage makes it different than Percy...but then again, Nick Cage might have been the reasons behind 2 above!

Release date seems to be the one effected this most. Breakout of family movies whole summer also effected it still that cannot be predicted.

I still don't get the Percy Jackson argument but since that has been going around for so long then maybe US people might have found it that way.

It looked boring.

PG movie overload.

The only similarities between the two that I see is the fantasy element which is shared with other fantasy movies like HP, Narnia, LotR, etc.

It felt like a winter release trapped in a summer time period. Just the wrong time to come out.

The farmer told the sheep to stay away.

Jay Baruchel doesn't have star quality. He's not attractive enough to be in the pretty boy club and too awkward to be in the Michael Cera club.

#1 I think is the overload of this type of movie. Airbender stole the thunder mostly, and with its reported crappiness to boot may have burnt people out on the genre. And before that KK, Persia, Percy. (It also looked like Dragonball sort of.)

#2 is the challenge of reaching the right demo which Disney stuggles with on movies like this - taking an old classic property and updating it. It alienates the old and the young by awkwardly trying to appeal to both. That scene with the brooms in the trailer is case in point.

#3 the competition - plenty of family breakouts to choose from, plus Inception interest stealing the young males it appeared to try to target the most.

New Disney management who are pussies.

This whole 'we make it for the family' doesn't mean you cut out things to make it G or PG or all the other jazz those cock-ups think.

Warner should run Disney. Pity that Roy Disney can no longer subjugate those fart-brains at the top to logic and non-money related subjects.

looked shit

Um, you raved about this movie in your review giving it something like 18 out of 5 Bradley.. Couldn't of been that bad

I agree with all these points, particularly with #1 and #3. It was mainly bad timing on Disney's part, with Despicable Me breaking out and plenty of other family fare being offered (TS3, Last Airbender, Karate Kid, hell even Grown Ups). Plus, the movie just didn't look all that great, and being overshadowed by Inception likely didn't help matters any.

Holidays are already crowded with fantasy/family flicks.

This probably wouldn't have done as bad had it been released next weekend.