Taylor Kitsch touchy about $200 million flop of ‘John Carter’
by Bill Zwecker March 20, 2012 8:48PM
Mars needs money Taylor Kitsch (right) stars in “John Carter,” which may be the biggest Hollywood flop ever.
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Updated: April 22, 2012 8:14AM
H ollywood is really buzzing over the dismal box office for “John Carter,” which Disney has announced will force a $200 million write-down. That makes the film — that was supposed to turn Taylor Kitsch into “the next big thing” — the biggest flop in Hollywood’s history.
It supplants “Cutthroat Island,” the 1995 big-screen disaster starring Oscar winner Geena Davis. That movie’s $147 million loss was the final straw that put Carolco Pictures out of business. Clearly that won’t happen to Disney, but it sounds like Kitsch is a bit sensitive about playing the title character in the Mars adventure. According to a source who saw Kitsch this week, the actor got “pretty testy” when a friend made a joke about slow ticket sales for the film that reportedly had an astounding over-all budget of $350 million. “You could tell, he’s very sensitive about this,” added the source. That said, a major Hollywood producer — and a fan of Kitsch — reminds us that starring in huge flops doesn’t necessarily kill a career. “Remember ‘Ishtar’? That starred a couple of guys named
Willem Dafoe’s first film, and I’d say he’s had a pretty decent career since then, wouldn’t you?” We’ll see how Kitsch’s next flick fares. “Battleship,” a big budget sci-fi adventure, is due out May 18.
The Oscar-winning Paltrow has already tweeted that she completely wrote her My Father’s Daughter collection of recipes. Ray, who has turned out many cookbooks, also denied she’s ever employed a ghost writer. “Rachael is over-the-top furious about this,” said a Ray insider. “It’s only when they see you doing something naughty or you have some kind of serious problem — like an addiction ... that’s when you end up on the cover of magazines.” Of course, Lawrence
NAME GAME: The current raft of negative stories about Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network reminds me of a chat I had with the TV queen years ago just as she was opening her Eccentric restaurant in partnership with Richard Melman.
When I asked Winfrey why not call the eatery “Oprah’s,” she quickly quipped, “If it failed — like many restaurants do — everyone would say, ‘Oprah’ s restaurant failed. I wouldn’t want to risk that.”
Of course, the Eccentric was shuttered about a year or so afterward and replaced by Melman’s Wildfire, which still continues in business — but without the Winfrey connection.
Though it’s a different time and a very different business, I wonder if Oprah has wondered if she should have named OWN something else.
Grace Mark, only a couple of weeks ago at the big “Windy City West” party in Santa Monica — and as always, Norman greeted everyone with what a fellow journalist once called “the best smile in the business.” To paraphrase his old TV rating system for films — “Norman’s mark” — it’s certain that Norman left his mark on many people’s lives. He will be deeply missed.
