MGM CEO Gary Barber says that the movie, which they co-financed, performed "below our expectations and we booked a modest loss.” While he didn't state how much money the company lost, Barber says they "were hoping we’d do 10% more than we did."
What does this mean for the plans to make the two other films in the series?
MGM has an option to co-finance the those films and is talking to Sony Pictures about following through, but only "assuming we can achieve better economics."
The big issue with 'Tattoo' isn't the performance, which is actually very impressive considering the longer running time and darker subject matter, rather it's the cost. Director Fincher made the film for $90 million smackers. It's pretty big number for an R-rated adult mystery thriller along with an expensive high-profile campaign push to promote it.
Had Fincher made the film been made for half the amount and using a tighter marketing campaign, the sequels would be much further along by now.
By way of a similar example the announcement on Monday made by Disney that its action adventure film John Carter will cost the studio some $200 Million in operating losses in the 1st quarter through March--means that films pegged as tentpoles--which are supposed to wow at least its built in audiences with eye-candy can have a rough go of it too.
I just got my copy of Fincher's Tattoo on Blu-ray and plan to do some sort of review of the movie soon
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