Underperforming films such as 'Dark Pheonix' to blame for Fox's operating loss
Image/Photo Credit: Fox
Disney boss Bob Iger has expressed his surprise at how recently acquired Fox Studios has underperformed in the latest set of fiscal results.
Fox posted a whopping $170 million operating loss, totally opposite to the $180 million in operating profit that was projected.
The surprising turnaround can be blamed on the X-Men movie Dark Phoenix, which underperformed at the box office. The film had a $200 million production budget but only earned $65.8 million domestically. Even with an international box office of $252 million, the movie is still considered a box office flop, given the usual calculation of a film's total budget as twice that of the production budget.
Iger stated his disappointment with the results in a fiscal call with investors.
"One of the biggest issues we faced in the quarter was the performance of the Fox film business," Iger said. "It was well below what it had been and well below what we thought it would be when we did the acquisition."
Iger was still positive about the future of the studio though and stated his high hopes for the upcoming Le Mans '66 film Ford v Ferrari.
Disney can also afford to own an underperforming Fox given the studio's strong performances elsewhere, already having generated a record $8 billion in box office takings in 2019 alone.
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