STRANGE MAGIC

Strange Magic

Budget: N/A	Financed by: LucasFilms
Domestic Gross: $12,059,388	Domestic Distributor: Disney (Touchstone)
Overseas Gross: $1,173,870	Directed by: Gary Rydstrom
Starring: Evan Rachel Wood (voice)	Produced by: George Lucas

Strange Magic was financed for an unreported amount by LucasFilms and it was in production when it was packaged with the sale of LucasFilms to Disney in 2012.  The movie was completely off the radar until two months before its release when the trailer dropped.  In fact, when Disney registered the Strange Magic domain name, the rumor mill thought it was a sequel to Frozen.  The mouse house released this critically maligned flop under their Touchstone banner and Strange Magic was tracking for a $10 million opening and would be directly competing for family auds with the second weekend of Paddington.  The Boy Next Door and the dud Mortdecai also bowed that weekend.

After $15 million in TV ads and millions more from print and additional marketing, the pic was booked into 3,020 theaters and tanked with $5,504,441 — placing #7 for the weekend.  At the time of release, it posted the 7th worst opening for a film playing in over 3,000 theaters.  Strange Magic declined a modest 38.9% in its second frame to $3,361,664 but sank 73.7% to $883,531 in its third weekend, when The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water opened.  It ended its run with a small $12,059,388 — which would leave Disney with about $6.6 million after theaters take their percentage of the gross.  Disney then canceled a blu-ray release and distributed only on DVD.

Disney opened Strange Magic in the UK on Aug 21 wide in 289 theaters to an embarrassing $88,111 and the film held on for a few weeks pulling in small numbers and closed with $722,694.  The reported overseas gross is just $1.1 million and Disney dumped Strange Magic straight to TV in Italy.