“The Call of the Wild,” the Harrison Ford-led family film, has thus far accumulated a domestic total of $45 million and $79 million worldwide. This in just two weeks of release. It even had a more-than-decent $24.8 million debut last week. So, why is it set to lose more than $50 million when all is said and done?
According to Variety, the budget of ‘Call’ is reported to be around $125 million, which doesn’t even include the costs of marketing. The film would need to earn approximately $250-275 million to cut a profit for Disney (which just won’t happen).
Why does the movie have a $125 million budget? Well, let’s forget about Ford’s usual $15-20 million per film salary, it’s actually the CGI used in ‘Call’ that is responsible for the huge budget. The film, which follows Ford and his animal companion, created the dog and most of the locations from scratch. Would it have been cheaper to use a real dog instead? You bet.
This now gives Disney 6 inherited box-office bombs from Fox, which they bought earlier last year in a deal which cost them close to $71.3 billion. The other five flops have been “Dark Phoenix,” “Stuber,” “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” “Ad Astra,” and “Underwater.”