‘Call Of The Wild’ Will Likely Lose $50 Million And Become Disney’s Latest Fox Flop

After this weekend’s box office totals were revealed, estimates put “The Call of the Wild” at a domestic total of $45 million. With a debut last week of $24.8 million, you would assume that the Harrison Ford-led family film is on track to become a profitable film. But then you look at the cost of the production and you realize that ‘Call’ is now going to sit alongside “Dark Phoenix,” “Stuber,” “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” “Ad Astra,” and “Underwater” as Disney films inherited from the Fox deal that have greatly underperformed.

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According to a new report from Variety, the latest estimates give “The Call of the Wild” a global box office total of $79 million after 10 days. Unfortunately, even though that total isn’t terrible for a non-franchise family film, the budget of ‘Call’ is reported to be around $125 million (though some reports claim it could be a lot bigger due to additional post-production work). With a $125 million budget, plus the costs of marketing, the report claims that “Call of the Wild” would need to earn approximately $250 million to $275 million to earn a profit for Disney. And with only $79 million in the bank, it’s likely going to end up about $50 million short.

As we’ve talked about previously, the reason for the huge budget of “Call of the Wild” is the massive amount of CGI that went into the film’s production. The film follows Ford and his trusty animal companion, a dog named Buck, as they go on an incredible adventure in the Yukon. And though we’ve seen similar man-befriends-animal movies in the past, with much cheaper budgets, ‘Call’ is one of the first to rely so heavily on CGI, creating the dog and most of the locations completely out of thin air.

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“The Call of the Wild” was filmed primarily on sets in Los Angeles, with very little outdoor locations used. Much like Disney’s “The Jungle Book” remake, the bulk of what audiences see on the screen is actually CGI, which has been largely criticized by folks who have screened the film. Particular scrutiny has been paid to the dog, Buck, with CGI that seems just a bit too cartoonish to be fully believed.

The film now joins the aforementioned Fox films that have been released by Disney and failed to live up to their hype and have turned into financial disappointments. This might be a large reason why recent reports have said that Disney is cutting back on Fox productions quite a bit moving forward.

“The Call of the Wild” is in theaters now.