Unsurprisingly, Fox's first fiscal quarter sales of 2015 were down year-over-year.
Equally unsurprising is that Fox executive chairman Rupert Murdoch put the blame squarely at the feet of Fantastic Four. However, there's an elephant in the room here: Was Fantastic Four really that big of a flop?
It's complicated.
Technically speaking, Fantastic Four cost around $120 million to make, and it brought in almost $168 million worldwide. That's a profit of $48 million, right? You also have to factor in the movie's PR campaign, which was no doubt pricey. However, even if the movie broke even, does that still qualify it as a flop?
The rub is that the movie was expected to bring in more than it did. So, when Fox put together its Q1 projections for 2015, those expectations were factored in.
"Our quarterly results reflect the expected impact of challenging comparisons for our film studio due to the timing of key releases, as well as the poor performance of The Fantastic Four," says Murdoch in his official comments.
Murdoch believes that the company's prospects for Q2 look much better. With The Martian already a success at the box office, he cited four upcoming films as holding strong potential for big profits: The Peanuts Movie (11/6), Joy (12/25), X-Men: Apocalypse (5/27/16) and Independence Day: Resurgence (6/24/16).
He also noted Empire's blockbuster success on television as being a strong step in the right direction there.
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