Studio Disney has admitted that its $250m-budgeted science fiction adventure John Carter is set to lose more than $200m (£126m) following disappointing box-office results.

John Carter
Production year: 2012
Country: USA
Cert (UK): 12A
Runtime: 132 mins
Directors: Andrew Stanton
Cast: Bryan Cranston, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Lynn Collins, Mark Strong, Samantha Morton, Taylor Kitsch, Willem Dafoe
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The film, directed by Andrew Stanton of the Pixar animation house, opened poorly in the US two weekends ago with just $30m, and has so far made $184m across the globe. It has been far more successful outside the US, with No 1 openings in Russia and the UK helping to save it from an even more humiliating total.

While on paper there have been bigger box-office turkeys in recent years – Breck Eisner’s Sahara took $68.7m from a reported $160m budget in 2005 and Oliver Stone’s Alexander managed just $34.3m from a $155m budget the previous year – the film already looks likely to be one of 2012’s biggest loss leaders. Disney’s statement hints that the film’s true budget may be far higher than $250m; industry analysts have repeatedly speculated that it cost at least another $50m thanks to a gargantuan marketing spend, making it one of the most expensive films of all time.

“In light of the theatrical performance of John Carter, we expect the film to generate an operating loss of approximately $200m during our second fiscal quarter ending 31 March,” said Disney. “As a result, our current expectation is that the studio segment will have an operating loss of between $80 and $120m for the second quarter. As we look forward to the second half of the year, we are excited about the upcoming releases of The Avengers and Brave, which we believe have tremendous potential to drive value for the studio and the rest of the company.”

The statement does not mention the possibility of sequels, but it appears they are now extremely unlikely to materialise. Stanton had hoped to direct a number of films focusing on Carter, a retired US civil war soldier who miraculously finds himself transported to Mars. John Carter is based on the first book in Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Barsoom series, of which there are 11 novels in total. Barsoom is the name the inhabitants of Mars use for their planet in the books.

Stanton, whose Pixar films Finding Nemo and Wall-E both won the best animation Oscar, recently told the Guardian he was expecting to go straight into a second John Carter film following the release of the first movie, and had no other projects lined up. John Carter’s box-office failure stands in sharp contrast to the huge success of another high-profile film from a Pixar veteran shooting his first live-action feature: Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol became the highest-grossing film in the long-running Tom Cruise-fronted spy series earlier this year, having so far taken $691m worldwide.

Watch Willem Dafoe and Andrew Stanton talk about John Carter’s budget (starts 4:50) Link to this video
“You’re assuming that anybody cares about those numbers,” Stanton said in an interview with the Guardian to promote John Carter earlier this month. “All I care about is I get to make the films I make, and I got it made, so the rest is gravy.

“It’s not a zero-sum game. This is not sports,” he added. “If one movie does well, every movie does well. Because all we want is more people going to the movie theatre like we did as kids. So it doesn’t benefit us if somebody loses. It benefits us if everybody wins.”

Star Willem Dafoe, who plays green alien Tars Tarkas, said: “I’m not thinking about the budget. And on some level, this has gotten a little crazy. Many years ago it was vulgar to talk about budgets because it wasn’t addressing the film. Now, the talk about business sometimes even eclipses the film itself.”

Critics have suggested that John Carter’s failure to connect with audiences may have been due to confusing marketing as well as lukewarm reviews. Disney chose not to run with the “of Mars” suffix in the wake of traditionally poor box-office results for films that focus on the planet, and trailers also largely ignored the movie’s central romance, something Hollywood tends to see as a surefire method of attracting female filmgoers.

“The movie is called John Carter, but aside from the fact that he can jump far and looks good without a shirt on, what else did commercials really convey about the title character?” wrote Ray Subers of the Box Office Mojo website. “Also, what was John Carter doing in this desert landscape occupied by tall green men, aside from fighting giant furry white creatures?”

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The 10 biggest box office flops of all time – in pictures
Despite its $200m black hole, John Carter still has some way to go to match this roll call of cinematic infamy. Here are Hollywood’s biggest losers at the box office: from failed Top Gun wannabes and galumphing sword-and-sandals romps to misguided space capers and expensive rom-com turkeys
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