A CHRISTMAS CAROL

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol pulled in strong numbers worldwide, but was another casualty of excessive spending where reaching a break even point would be near impossible. Disney footed the bill for the $200 million motion capture film and launched one of the mouse house’s most expensive worldwide marketing campaigns. They launched a 16,000 mile, six month train tour, with a five car train that had exhibits of the film, which required tons of Disney staff to see through. Mark Zoradi, who was the head of worldwide marketing at Disney spearheaded the bloated ad campaign and saw himself forced to resign when A Christmas Carol opened in the US to $30,051,075 — a troubling number for such a massive expense behind the pic. A Christmas Carol declined a modest 25.8% the following weekend to $22,308,913 and had enough legs to get to a respectable enough $137,855,863 final gross in the US. The overseas total was a solid $187.4 million but Disney would only see back about $178.8 million from the worldwide total after theaters take their percentage of the gross — which covers the hefty P&A spend, but little of the budget. Disney took an unreported but estimated $50 million and some estimates go as high as $100 million write down on the film. In 2011 Disney would shutter Zemeckis’ ImageMovers Digital after he produced the motion capture mega-flop Mars Needs Moms.