Although TMS’ Lesley Coffin noted that Joe Wright’s Pan has the considerable force of nostalgia on its side, that appeal wasn’t enough to make up for the movie’s many flaws, and it showed in the dismal reception it received at the box office.
Peter Sciretta over at /Film writes,
The adaptation of J.M. Barrie‘s classic fairy tale cost about $150 million to make, and that’s not including the hefty marketing costs. However, when Pan hit theaters this weekend, it opened at #3 with just over $15 million in the United States and only around $25 million from 54 international markets.
The Hollywood Reporter notes that, depending on how much Warner Bros. really spent on marketing, the studio could see losses between $130-$150 million–although that could change if Pan is received well when it opens in China on October 22nd.
MKM Partners analyst Eric Handler put that in context for THR:
It’s been a rough year for Warner Bros., but look at what they have next year between Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts.
Pan‘s failure is especially interesting considering some of the most common motivations for whitewashing a film are financial. A “Pan insider” told THR back in June that Rooney Mara was “the best actress for the part” of Tiger Lily, but it sure is highly coincidental that “the best person for the part” is almost always a white actor, and that “we wanted to do color-blind casting” (supposedly the case with Pan) is usually only used as an excuse to cast white actors as characters of color, rather than the other way around.
I don’t think that Pan‘s failure in the box office can be entirely blamed on audiences being fed up with racist bullshit, but if nothing else, as we saw with Cameron Crowe’s Aloha, the racist bullshit sure didn’t help.
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Published: Oct 13, 2015 03:41 pm