TREASURE PLANET

Treasure Planet

Disney had been in the process of gutting its Feature Animation studio in Burbank, slashing animators salaries and laying off dozens, as the mouse house wanted to focus on computer animated fare. At the end of 2002, Disney closed down the Burbank studio after animators completed what would be the box office flop Home On The Range. The remaining traditional animated fare was moved to Florida for cheaper costs. Treasure Planet cost Disney $140 million in production expenses and tens of millions more to market. In addition to the expensive ad campaign, the mouse house partnered with McDonald’s Pepsi-Cola, Dreyer’s and Kellogg’s for promotional tie-ins. Disney opened the pic over the Thanksgiving frame, to a market saturated with family fare and they were locked into the date under an agreement with promotional partner McDonald’s. Treasure Planet was booked very wide into 3,227 theaters and opened against the animated Eight Crazy Nights, Solaris, Wes Craven Presents: They and Extreme Ops. It pulled in a disastrous $12,083,248 — placing #4 for the weekend behind Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets and even behind Disney’s The Santa Clause 2 in its 5th week in release. Showing terrible legs at the box office, Treasure Planet fell 54.1% the following weekend to $5,547,431 and 44.1% in its third frame to $3,102,173. Its domestic run closed with $38,176,783.

The overseas rollout was also a disappointment, with numbers from France being the only respectable ones at $16.8 million. The overseas cume was $71.4 million and Treasure Planet ended as a $74 million write down for Disney.