LOS ANGELES — Disney’s big-budget “Tomorrowland” was a relative bust at the domestic box office over the holiday weekend, a result that will likely make Hollywood even more reluctant to invest in original stories.
Costing at least $280 million to make and market, “Tomorrowland” will take in about $40.7 million between Friday and Monday, according to box office analysts, or about 20 percent less than anticipated going into the holiday weekend.
The PG-rated “Tomorrowland,” directed by Brad Bird, who was also a writer, notably had the prime Memorial Day period almost entirely to itself. The only other new wide-release movie was a remake of “Poltergeist” (20th Century Fox), which analysts said on Sunday would take in about $27.7 million, a solid result for an R-rated horror film that cost Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer a modest $35 million to make.
“Tomorrowland” was the No. 1 movie, but it only narrowly beat a holdover: “Pitch Perfect 2” (Universal Pictures) will sell an estimated $37.9 million in tickets over the four-day period, for a two-week domestic total of $125.4 million.
A science-fiction adventure starring George Clooney and Britt Robertson, “Tomorrowland” must perform better overseas to avoid a write-down. So far, the film has taken in about $26.7 million from release in 56 percent of the international marketplace, Disney said. Big markets like Japan, China and Brazil are still to come.
Disney hopes that a shortage of family-friendly movies in the weeks ahead will allow “Tomorrowland” to find a bigger audience in the United States and Canada. Depending on word of mouth is a risk, however. The movie divided critics; ticket buyers gave it a B grade in CinemaScore exit polls.
“It is what it is, but we’re not too disappointed just yet,” Dave Hollis, Disney’s executive vice president for theatrical distribution, said in a telephone interview on Sunday morning. “In a summer of sequels, we hold out a lot of hope that wildly underserved families will find ‘Tomorrowland’ and enjoy its originality.”
Even so, there is no question that “Tomorrowland” is a major misfire for Disney’s live-action movie division, which, with films like “Maleficent” and “Cinderella,” had finally managed to move beyond flops like “The Lone Ranger.” Lackluster “Tomorrowland” ticket sales came despite an aggressive two-year marketing campaign that included a Super Bowl commercial, trailers on “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” and exhibitions at Disney theme parks.
“Tomorrowland” was also released in 354 Imax theaters, which typically offer a boost because tickets sell for higher prices.
What happened?
For a start, audiences seemed to be unsure what “Tomorrowland” was about, box-office analysts said. Disney did that on purpose, partly because Mr. Bird and his co-writer, Damon Lindelof, strongly believe that marketing materials should not give too much away. (Christopher Nolan and J. J. Abrams are other proponents of the keep-them-guessing strategy.)
“Tomorrowland” was also an attempt by Mr. Bird to cut against the grain. While moviegoers have shown a taste for post-apocalyptic movies in recent years, Mr. Bird wanted to offer a more optimistic portrait of the future. But there is a reason studios continue to churn out dystopian fare: People seem to like it.
In the end, “Tomorrowland” may have simply been too ambitious. With a complicated structure, the film attempted to take on the present, the past (the 1960s) and the future. Movies that try to take audiences to multiple worlds at once — “Green Lantern,” “Jupiter Ascending,” “Tron: Legacy” — are difficult to market.
The good news: Even if “Tomorrowland” ends up losing a substantial amount of money, Walt Disney Studios has a cushion from its Marvel and Pixar units. “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” has taken in $1.3 billion worldwide. Coming up, Pixar’s “Inside Out” is also expected to be a blockbuster.
“Tomorrowland” also brought Mr. Bird back into the Disney family; he recently agreed to make a sequel to his 2004 animated hit, “The Incredibles.”
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