“Home on the Range” is a movie that few people saw and even fewer remember. It cost $110 million to make and achieved a worldwide box office of just $145 million, which Variety described as “anemic.” I think the old trade magazine should have used a stronger word than that, but this was 2004, a year that hit Disney with a trifecta of box office bombs.
First up was “The Ladykillers,” which was released on March 26, a week before “Home on the Range.” The film was a remake of a popular British classic and had Tom Hanks at the helm and the Coen brothers at the reins. Unfortunately, the comedy did not go down well with critics, and was also shaping up to be a box office disappointment.
However, the outlook was rosy compared to “The Alamo,” which crashed and burned on April 9 and grossed just $25 million before leaving theaters, which wasn’t even a quarter of its staggering $20 budget. 107 million. Three bombs in three weeks sent Disney’s market value plummeting by $1 billion.
