The opening weekend for Mars Needs Moms was disappointing #5. The feature film which cost $150 million to make only took in $6.8 million on it’s inaugural weekend.
Movie was based on Berkeley Breathed’s children’s book of the same title.
Last weekend’s winner, Rango – the quirky animated film – dropped to #2.
Possibly one of the biggest bombs of all time, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, putting it in the top 10 of worst openings for a film with that large a distribution.
Quoting Disney distribution president Chuck Viane from the WSJ, “We?re wondering what happened.? http://on.wsj.com/gaRUqJ
What happened is ugly, lifeless, pseudo-realistic mo-cap will draw less of an audience than a well designed animated feature. This film would have done much better had they kept the look of Breathed’s designs.
But what do I know ?I don’t have a degree in marketing ? I’m just a cartoonist.
They also asked “What happened?” after Howard The Duck bombed. I can’t imagine controlling that much money and being so clueless.
Eddie you hit the nail on the head! My kids have no desire to see that movie, why? …because, “they look creepy.” If Berke’s characters were used, I guarantee my kids and myself would be wanting to see it. You wouldn’t use a real penguin to do an Opus story, so why capture real people and then match them up with pseudo real looking martians when you have a beautiful world and characters already drawn by the creator?
Mars needs ARTISTS…
What??? Berke is only a talented children’s book artist, and one of the most successful comedic artists of all times. Why would they have kept his designs?
I remember when Parker and Stone were promoting ‘Team America’ they said the original idea was to do ‘Thunderbirds Are Go!’ but they found out someone was doing a live action version. They laughed that only Hollywood would make ‘Thunderbirds’ w/o the one thing that was totally awesome about it. Now here we are with Berke Breathed movie w/o his character designs.
The saddest part is they may blame Berke’s work, and I’m stil hoping for a proper ‘Bloom County’ animated property.
Aw well…here’s to my OGN being adapted better. 😉
Oh, and Jeff…my daughter is 5 and is actually afraid of the commercials. She says it looks like a scarey movie.
It got decent reviews. Entertainment Weekly gave it a A-. On Twitter, some folks who saw it compared it to Avatar.
It really has nothing to do with Berkeley’s picture book other than title and the essence of the ending. He had no involvement on the film, which is par for the course these days.
I think a 32-page picture book make for a terrible 2-hour movie.
And it seems they are either hits or flops at the box office.
— “Where the Wild Things Are,” a much anticipated movie made less than $100 million worldwide.
— “The Cat in the Hat” movie barely made its budget back at $133 million worldwide.
— “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas” movie did exceptionally well at $345 million worldwide.
— “Horton Hears a Who” did well at $295 million worldwide.
There seems to be better luck at turning chapter books and independent reader books into somewhat successful movies.
Stacy, per your comments, it does make one wonder why they would spend $150 million on something that if it did well might break even. I guess they were hoping for exceptional, but all the comments above probably nailed it pegged why that didn’t happen. Also … a release in mid March???
I loved the book. Haven’t seen the movie yet, just wondering now what direction “Flawed Dogs” will be like when brought to the big screen. Hmmm…
Robert Zemeckis has done some fine work in his career, but he really needs to abandon his obsession with motion capture. Like MNM, Polar Express sucks, too.
Polar Express does not hold up well. And I didn’t like it when it came out.
I haven’t seen “Mars Needs Moms” and don’t intend to. But “Where The Wild Things Are” may have been the worst movie I ever did see. What a travesty.
Terry, agreed. That movie sickened me.
R Crumb had to kill of his character wit an ice pick after Fritz the Cat was hijacked. I can’t wait to see if BB has a poetic response. I saw Snow White on TV the other day, I dozed off for a second and awoke thinking I was back in time when my kids were young. Nice! Some things are classics
I believe Breathed’s Flawed Dogs project with Dreamworks will be much more successful. I still wait patiently for the television debut of Pete and Pickles.