This weekend, the film “Pan” flopped at the box-office, bringing in less than $20 million.

On paper, this film had all the elements to succeed: Beloved source material, a high budget with visual effects, a critically acclaimed director and just enough star power. But when you read between the lines of these seemingly good elements, this film was never destined to take off.

The first sign of this film being in trouble was a rescheduling of its release date. “Pan” was originally supposed to be a big summer release for Warner Brothers, opening in a prime July 24 slot. For some context, this would be the week after “Ant-Man,” the same week as “Pixels” and “Paper Towns” and the week before “Mission: Impossible.”

Needless to say, this was quite the competitive market. Warner Brothers could already see that Pan would be lost in the shuffle of these blockbusters so it pushed it back to October where, much to the company’s dismay, it looks to be lost in the shuffle again.

One thing Warner Brothers probably did not anticipate was the success of this fall’s other films. “Pan” has to compete with “The Martian,” the over-performing Matt Damon sci-fi that some are calling one of the best movies of the year and “Hotel Transylvania 2,” which is also outperforming expectations.

These two films combined are bad for the family audience of “Pan.” We must remember that at the end of the day, parents are the ones buying tickets for their children. Parents with older or mature kids will probably try to persuade them to see “The Martian,” while the younger kids will probably want to stick to the fun “Hotel Transylvania 2,” which, for the record, earned more than “Pan,” despite being open for three weeks. These two films essentially put “Pan” in the dead zone of being not mature enough for older kids and too mature for younger kids.

As important as scheduling is, ultimately it should not matter if you have an interesting product people want to see. That’s the problem with “Pan.” It isn’t interesting enough.

Reimagining of fairy tales is the hot trend right now. “Alice in Wonderland,” “Maleficent” and “Cinderella” have were rousing successes, but they have one significant difference from “Pan” — they are Disney movies. Here, “Pan” is by Warner Brothers.

Now, most children do not really know or even care what movie is made by Warner Brothers, but they definitely know what is made by Disney. The company just knows how to make movies feel special and give them a certain magic. Because “Pan” is trying to capitalize on the success of Disney’s animated “Peter Pan,” this film not being Disney simply feels like a rip-off.

Director Joe Wright is known for creating visually pleasing movies, but he usually does this with a small budget and small stories. Here, his style is extrapolated to epic proportions, and he was simply unprepared. The movie’s marketing could not decide if it was a visual-effects action movie.

Additionally, there is a bit of “Peter Pan” saturation right now. The musical was just staged on NBC, and “Finding Neverland,” a musical about author J. M. Barrie is currently on Broadway. There is “Peter Pan” everywhere you look, so why go to the movies to see it again?

Erik Benjamin is a sophomore television, radio and film major. You can email him atebenjami@syr.edu or follow him @embenjamin14 on Twitter.

Published on October 11, 2015 at 7:35 pm