“Battleship,” Universal Picture’s big budget science fiction film, is likely to dent the studio’s profits after it opened with lower than forecast ticket sales, according to analysts.

The film, which Comcast unit Universal has said cost $209 million to produce, generated $23.4 million in ticket sales at theaters in the U.S. and Canada during its opening weekend, according to figures compiled by Hollywood.com.

It had been projected by tracking services used by Hollywood studios to have ticket sales of between $35 million and $40 million.

The movie, which stars Liam Neeson and the singer Rihanna, finished the weekend second to Walt Disney’s superhero blockbuster “The Avengers,” which led the box office for the third weekend with $55.1 million in ticket sales.

“It is not quite the epic disaster of ‘John Carter,’ but this will put a dent in Comcast’s quarter,” said Matthew Harrigan of Wunderlich Securities, who follows Comcast. He did not quantify how much he expected the film to lose.

“John Carter,” which sold $30.2 million during its opening weekend in March, saddled Disney with a $200 million loss, the company said. That film cost more than $250 million to produce.

Based on the “John Carter” performance, Universal will lose $100 million to $200 million, estimates Michael Morris of Davenport & Co., who does not follow Comcast, but follows Disney, News Corp. and Time Warner, which also have studio units.

A Universal spokeswoman would not comment. Comcast officials were not immediately available for comment.

The studio is estimated to have spent more than $100 million to market the film, standard for large budget films.

“Battleship” has sold more than $220 million in overseas tickets, Universal has said. It is forecast to reach $250 million in foreign sales.

Movie studios generally receive about half of the revenues from ticket sales in North America and less in foreign markets.

The film needed to generate more than $50 million in weekend ticket sales to break even, said analyst Tony Wible, a managing director at Janney Montgomery Scott who compiles a data base on film performances. He does not follow Comcast.

Last week, Disney’s superhero franchise-builder surprised experts by cutting into the expected weekend ticket sales of “Dark Shadows,” starring Johnny Depp, which took in just $29.7 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

During the coming weekend, “Battleship,” loosely based on the Hasbro board game, will face the third installment of Will Smith’s futuristic comedy “Men in Black.” The last one in the series, in 2002, generated $190.4 million in domestic ticket sales.

Source: Reuters.

It’s true, superhero movies are generally not known for their adherence to strict reality. No surprise there, though I’d say it could be argued that Marvel has actually done a passable job of finding real-world ways and reasons for its heroes to possibly exist (Thor obviously excluded).

But in an angle that I freely admit I would never have anticipated, when the Pentagon chose to withdraw its support for Marvel’s THE AVENGERS due to its “unreality” they were actually referring to SHIELD any not any of the super-powered beings found therein.  “We couldn’t reconcile the unreality of this international organization and our place in it,” said Phil Straub, the Defense Department’s Hollywood liaison.  “To whom did S.H.I.E.L.D. answer? Did we work for S.H.I.E.L.D.? We hit that roadblock and decided we couldn’t do anything with the film.”

As an example: while the humvees which show up at the end (driven by members of the National Guard) were used in cooperation with the Defense Department, any of the military planes seen on or around the Helicarrier (“F-22 Raptors and what looked like F-35 Joint Strike Fighters”) were all inserted digitally as the military refused to provide real ones.

To be fair, Marvel has been suitably murky as to just what SHIELD is in the world of the movies – not that they have to explain everything away by any means, but is it an American governmental agency that has authority over America’s military, or is it a more international organization created via a sort of ”United Nations Security Council resolution” uses American military equipment on loan? Without answers to these questions, all Straub could do was decide “It just got to the point where it didn’t make any sense.”

Source: JoBlo.

My Two Cents: How is it that each trailer for this movie is better than the one before it? End Two Cents.

OBO, Central African Republic (AP) — Deep in the jungle, this small, remote Central African village is farther from the coast than any point on the continent. It’s also where three international armies have zeroed in on Joseph Kony, one of the world’s most wanted warlords.

Obo was the first place in the Central African Republic that Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army attacked in 2008; today, it’s one of four forward operating locations where U.S. special forces have paired up with local troops and Ugandan soldiers to seek out Kony, who is believed likely to be hiding out in the rugged terrain northwest of the town. For seven years he has been wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity after his forces cut a wide and bloody swath across several central African nations with rapes, abductions and killings.

Part of the LRA’s success in eluding government forces has been its ability to slip back and forth over the porous borders of the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Congo. But since late last year, U.S. forces have been providing intelligence, looking at patterns of movement, and setting up better communications to link the countries’ forces together so that they can better track the guerrilla force.

Sent by President Barack Obama at the end of 2011, the 100 U.S. soldiers are split up about 15 to 30 per base, bringing in American technology and experience to assist local forces.

[Related: 'Kony 2012' audience dips 98 percent for part 2] 

Exact details on specific improvements that the American forces have brought to the table, however, are classified, to avoid giving Kony the ability to take countermeasures.

CONTINUED at Yahoo News.

Almost as quickly as the “KONY 2012″ YouTube video became a viral hit, the reputation of the 30-minute documentary about Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) strongman Joesph Kony crashed. And now “part II” of the story has attracted just 2 percent of the project’s original audience.

The Internet phenomenon that attracted tens of millions of viewers was marred by reports that the non-profit advocacy organization Invisible Children oversimplified the war in Central Africa and failed to acknowledge a crucial fact: Ugandan forces pushed the LRA out of that country six years ago.

Ugandan Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi responded with a taped response on YouTube. AndUgandans started their own movement to counter the KONY 2012 campaign and tell their own story.

Invisible Children CEO Ben Keesey said his group’s motives remain the same. They won’t stop until Kony, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity, is captured and tried.

Meanwhile, the group’s second Kony-related video, posted earlier this month, addresses some of the nagging issues left over from the first — and tries to bring a dwindling audience back into the fold.

Source: Yahoo News. Video at link.

Earlier this week, photographs from Hulk Hogan‘s sex tape were released on the Internet. It took a few days to hear anything from the Hogan camp, but it turns out he really does not like being made a fool of, as TMZ reported that Hogan’s attorney is threatening legal action.

Question on Everybody’s Mind: Is Hogan going to get what he wants?

Our Take: It is not impossible for Hogan’s legal team to threaten action to get the photos taken down, but more often than not, when something is on the Internet it is incredibly hard to get it off.

Hype Meter: 4 out of 5 Reasons To Hulk Up

As mentioned earlier this week, it is amazing to think that this whole thing happened to Hogan given how in control of every possible situation he has to be. I don’t know what else to say about it, but I think things are far from over.

Deeper Dive

Hogan Says To Get His Pictures Off The ‘Net (TMZ)

Source: Bleacher Report.