The Call of the Wild is another notable box office bomb for Disney, failing to find the same kind of success other dog films have in recent years. Debuting in theaters in late February, The Call of the Wild is Disney’s latest release under the 20th Century Studios label. It was one of the projects the Mouse House inherited from Fox when they officially acquired 20th Century Fox’s entertainment assets last year. Unfortunately, like many of the Fox movies distributed under Disney’s watch, The Call of the Wild struggled commercially. Despite earning mostly positive reviews (though, it’s far from a critical darling), the film’s grossed only $79.8 million globally as of this writing.
Because of that uninspiring box office performance, The Call of the Wild is expected to lose $50 million during its theatrical run. That development is a little surprising, as other dog-based films (like A Dog’s Purpose and its sequel A Dog’s Journey) have done pretty well for themselves at the multiplex. As for why things were so different in the case of The Call of the Wild, one only has to look at the movie’s lavish production budget.
The Call of the Wild cost somewhere between $125-150 million (a figure in line with some comic book adaptations) to make. That means the film had to bring in at least $250 million worldwide just to break even. Considering how low The Call of the Wild’s current haul is, it’s highly unlikely that will happen. The film wasn’t much of a draw in its opening weekend (coming in second behind Sonic the Hedgehog) and business is now declining.
In contrast, 2017’s A Dog’s Purpose cost $22 million to make and brought in $205.7 million at the box office, turning a nice profit for Universal. Because of the small budget, that film needed to earn about $44 million to make its money back and ended up becoming a massive hit. That led to the 2019 sequel, A Dog’s Journey, getting the green light. While that movie wasn’t as much of a success as its predecessor (grossing $71.7 million against a $16 million budget), it still ended its run in the black since it was inexpensive to make. As one can see, The Call of the Wild has made more than A Dog’s Journey, but is considered a flop due to its budget being very high. This stresses the importance of keeping costs in check - particularly for projects with questionable box office prospects.
The Call of the Wild also struggled to make much of an impact at the box office because, frankly, there was limited demand for an adaptation of the classic book. It was never going to be much of a commercial draw, which is why it’s surprising the studio invested so much money into it. With another approach, The Call of the Wild might have been able to do well within its niche and be a modest, yet unremarkable, success. This is definitely a film that would have benefitted from being mid-budget instead of sporting the price tag of studio tentpoles. Of course, director Chris Sanders and company might have then had to find a different solution to portraying the animals (all of them are CGI), but that tradeoff would have been worth it if it meant The Call of the Wild didn’t go down as a loss.
More: Call of the Wild Cast & Character Guide
