Disney Spent $378 Million on Its Most Expensive Movie...But Did It Pay Off?

It’s no secret that Disney puts a LOT of time, effort, and MONEY into its movies, especially its franchises.

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Sometimes that investment pays off, but sometimes it doesn’t. There’s one particular movie that turned out to be the MOST expensive film EVER, so we’re going to take a look at the numbers and see if it was worth it.

That movie is Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth installment in Disney’s hit Pirates of the Caribbean series. According to Collider, the movie cost a whopping $378 million to make, making it the most expensive movie EVER.

According to CBR, that amount is after a tax credit that the film received for shooting in the United Kingdom. The total cost of the movie actually ended up being over $410 million!

The movie followed the antics of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) who got forced into becoming allies with a woman from his past, Angelica (Penelope Cruz) to search for the Fountain of Youth. The two are captured by Blackbeard (Ian McShane) who has allied with Hector Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush).

Did Disney’s gamble on the movie pay off? Here’s the thing — the movie was NOT a critical success…at all. It only has a 33% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, putting it behind the three movies that came before it. Critics called it a “poorly scripted film,” “entirely empty,” “too bloated,” and even “unwatchable.”

The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is a little more favorable at 55 percent, so about half of those who saw it seemed to have actually liked it.

Here’s the thing, though — this movie made BIG bucks for Disney at the box office. According to Box Office Mojo, the film grossed over $1 billion worldwide. That includes over $241,000 at the U.S. box office and over $804,000 internationally. That means Disney more than made back its initial moviemaking cost of $378 million, but a lot of that success came from the international market.

That made it the third highest-grossing film of 2011, as well as the second most successful film in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, according to Box Office Mojo. So did Disney’s gamble with its large movie budget pay off? We’d have to say yes when looking at the numbers. Perhaps the critical reviews would disagree, but you can’t deny the amount of cash the film brought in for the franchise and Disney.