The Polar Express Loses Money Big Time

I met with a studio executive in Southern California yesterday and she told me a very interesting story about The Polar Express. Both the release date and marketing efforts that Warner Bros. planned were "hijacked" by competitive studios.

The Polar Express is a holiday movie. Because of the inherant nature of the movie, there was a very small window of time that Warner Brothers could release it - ie it has a very short shelf life. No one is going to see it after December 25th, and not many people would want to see it before Halloween. So, no matter what what going on with competitive flicks, Warner Brothers had to realease it.

The Polar Express ended up getting "squeezed" by Paramont's "Sponge Bob, The Movie" and Disney's "The Incredibles." The Incredibles opened around the same time that The Polar Express was released and Sponge Bob was released a week or two later. All of this means that The Polar Express was the odd man out. Kids would rather go see PG movies like Sponge Bob and The Incredibles rather than go to the soft "G" movie, The Polar Express, on top of the fact that those movies are more fresh and relevant to the younger set. Parents would also rather see the PG movies than the G movie. So, all of a sudden, the available audience for The Polar Express becomes 4 - 6 years old, instead of 4 - 10 years old.

WB spent $170 million making the movie and well over $100 million marketing it, to bring the grand total to close to $300 million, and they are taking a bath, big time. The first weekend ticket sales were terrible which ultimately set the stage for Warner Bros. to lose 9 figures on the movie. WB can only hope for strong DVD sales in November of 2005.