John Carter - Thursday Midnight Debut


by Gitesh Pandya

Despite an aggressive push, the mega-budgeted sci-fi epic John Carter got off to a slow start at the North American box office with a disastrous $500,000 from Thursday midnight shows. That was less than half of the amount collected just a week ago by the teen party pic Project X which grossed $1.2M from its first shows on Thursday night at midnight leading to an opening weekend of $21.1M. Disney claimed that Carter's midnights were about even with its 2010 dud Prince of Persia.

As an R-rated film, Project skewed towards an audience that would be available to see such a late show while the PG-13 Carter's audience will include younger patrons that will wait for the weekend so its total Friday-to-Sunday tally could be higher. But the debut figure for the Mars pic is disturbingly low especially since sci-fi pics based on known properties tend to draw a sizable fan base to the first midnight shows. With a reported price tag between $250M and $300M, Disney's big gamble is going to need good word of mouth and incredibly strong international numbers in order to reach any kind of respectable final numbers.

The studio did report that Thursday generated the biggest opening day in Russian cinema history. That rapidly growing market has become increasingly lucrative for Hollywood's action and 3D tentpoles. Most major international territories will open John Carter this weekend day and date.

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Last Updated: March 9, 2012 at 12:15PM ET

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