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Director Admits: OK, Battleship 'Didn't Work'

Peter Berg says movie got too big

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff

Posted Jun 11, 2012 10:00 AM CDT

(Newser) – It's not often that directors publicly admit that a movie was a mess, but that's what Peter Berg did yesterday at a Producers Guild conference. Speaking at a panel called "Passion Projects: Making Films Everyone Says Will Never Get Made," Berg took a moment to acknowledge Battleship's grisly box-office take. "I have a movie in theaters right now which has obviously underperformed in many ways," he said, according to the Wrap. "When [a movie] doesn't work it's … an interesting opportunity to look at what went wrong."

Berg said he hadn't been able to make the movie personal enough. "It was a movie that I tried as hard as I could to get inside of. But the concept is so big and powerful, and the money is so big and so powerful, that the movie is going to run away with itself. … It was an interesting eye-opener." Battleship sunk badly at the box office, grossing just $59.8 million domestically—which, the Huffington Post points out, is $7 million less than John Carter.

In this film publicity image released by Universal Pictures, a naval ship is attacked by an invader in a scene from Battleship.
In this film publicity image released by Universal Pictures, a naval ship is attacked by an invader in a scene from "Battleship."   (AP Photo/Universal Pictures)
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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 11 comments
JCH287
Jun 13, 2012 2:54 PM CDT
"Don't worry, guys, my next project is going to totally make up for it. Hold on to your hats, folks: CONNECT FOUR: THE MOVIE Starring Nicki Minaj."
Coolface
Jun 11, 2012 12:30 PM CDT
In all honesty it wasn't that bad, it wasn't pretending to be something beyond mindless, silly fun, and the movie was pretty self aware. While it's only made $59 million domestically, outside of the US, the worldwide gross has been $235,600,000, which totaled with the domestic gross, equals $295,430,000 as of today. It had a budget of $209 million, which at least means the film made back it's money and made roughly $100 million in profit. Not exactly a big success when compared to it's budget, but not the bomb it was made out to be. Now...John Carter on the other hand....tanked everywhere, domestically and worldwide. THAT'S one to dissect "what went wrong".
MisterPlinkett
Jun 11, 2012 10:38 AM CDT
but how many retards paid to see the transformers movies?  at least this one was coherent.
 

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