After the $200 million “John Carter” fiasco, Disney is set to take another mega-million dollar movie hit.
The media giant, led by CEO Robert Iger, will take a $50 million write-down for scrapping an untitled stop-motion animation film from Henry Selick, who directed “Coraline” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
The move will cut quarterly earnings by two cents a share, Jay Rasulo, the company’s chief financial officer, said yesterday at a Bank of America media conference.
While Rasulo didn’t elaborate on the reasons, the project was cancelled after the arrival of new studio boss Alan Horn. The movie was slated for release in October 2013.
Disney’s former film boss, Rich Ross, was forced out shortly after the “John Carter” debacle, which ranks as one of the biggest flops in movie history.
Rasulo also said advertising wasn’t as strong as expected, although he predicted a better fourth quarter.
“We did not see the kind of rebound after the Olympics that we thought we’d see, when we gave our last view of advertising with our third-quarter results.”