BOX OFFICE: JOHN CARTER Passes $30M Domestically; Takes $70M Internationally

Despite a soft opening leading analysts to believe that John Carter would fail to reach the $30M mark in the US, the movie has managed to reach an estimated $30.6M in total for the weekend. Unfortunately, this is still considered by many to be a "flop" with last weekend's Dr. Seuss' The Lorax holding onto the top spot with an additional $39.1M; a grand total of $122 million in just 10 days.

One Wall Street analyst, Evercore's Alan Gould, recently estimated that Disney's film (based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' century old novels) will lose as much as $165 million. However, John Carter has had much better luck overseas, grossing $70.6M from 55 foreign countries. This obviously takes its current box office total to over $100M. However, with a budget of $250M, it's highly unlikely that a sequel will get a greenlight at this point.

Talking to The Los Angeles Times, Dave Hollis, Disney's executive vice president of distribution, had this to say about why the film has failed to live up to their expectations. "Every studio ultimately has their turn with a film like this -- despite how good it might be. I wish there was a simple silver bullet answer of why people didn’t come out in the kind of quantity we would have liked." Did you watch John Carter this weekend? If so, what did you think? You can find my review HERE, but be sure to sound off with your thoughts below.

UPDATE: Just a minor update for you here. Deadline's Nikki Finke has revealed her take on why John Carter underperformed and I thought you guys might be interested to read this perspective on the situation.

"To summarize: this flop is the result of a studio trying to indulge Pixar… Of an arrogant director who ignored everybody’s warnings that he was making a film too faithful to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s first novel in the Barsoom series "A Princess of Mars"… Of the failure of Dick Cook, and Rich Ross, and Bob Iger to rein in Stanton’s excessive ego or pull the plug on the movie’s bloated budget … Of really rotten marketing that failed to explain the significant or scope of the film’s Civil War-to-Mars story and character arcs and instead made the 3D movie look way as generic as its eventual title… Disagree all you want, but Hollywood is telling me that competent marketing could have drawn in women with the love story, or attracted younger males who weren’t fanboys of the source material. Instead the campaign was as rigid and confusing as the movie itself, not to mention that ’Before Star Wars, Before Avatar‘ tag line should have come at the start and not at the finish. But even more I think John Carter is a product of mogul wuss-ism as much as it is misplaced talent worship."

STARRING:

Taylor Kitsch as John Carter
Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris
Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas
Thomas Haden Church as Tal Hajus
Dominic West as Sab Than
James Purefoy as Kantos Kan
Mark Strong as Matai Shang
Daryl Sabara as Edgar Rice Burroughs

RELEASE DATE: Out Now.