I remember back a few years ago when Disney dumped Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” film. They thought the controversial nature of the film was going to be too much of a financial risk, and that the $30 million it was going to take to make it wouldn’t be cost effective. So Mel Gibson had to finance the whole thing himself.
Well, the film went on to make over $370 million domestically and is at #11 for the all time domestic box office. World wide the film pulled in over $611 million. Someone at Disney got fired over this. Disney failed to recognize what potential there was in the project because of controversy… and they’re doing it again.
Word has it that Disney is now trying to shop out their distribution rights to Apocalypto, the new Mel Gibson flick. Once again they fear the controversy surrounding the infamous drunken Mel Tyraid is going to hurt the film, and then it isn’t going to be cost effective. And once again, this is going to bite them in the ass… HARD.
Other distributors are already lining up to take over the rights to the film, and they’ll be glad they did. And once again, someone at Disney is going to get fired over this for misreading how much “controversy” is going to effect the boxoffice performance of a film.
