The Huntsman: Winter’s War could lose studio Universal as much as $70m (£48m) at the box office, according to Variety.
The magazine predicts global takings of around $200m for the fantasy prequel, which floundered last weekend in the US with just $19.4m on debut (down from initial $20.1m projections). With a high-profile cast led by Chris Hemsworth and featuring Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan’s film was budgeted at $115m in production costs alone.
Winter’s War was greenlit following the box office success of 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman, which took $397m worldwide. But the move to dispense with Kristen Stewart’s princess in favour of Hemsworth’s Huntsman appears to have failed to impress audiences. Critics have also been largely scathing: the film has a 16% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, while the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw labelled it a “dreary sub-franchise fairytale product”.
Variety suggests The Huntsman would need to make around $325m to break even. The film’s failure is a rare recent misstep for Universal, whose efforts such as Jurassic World, Minions and Fast & Furious 7 all passed the $1bn mark as part of a record-breaking $6.9bn haul last year
