CBS Films claims it’s going full steam ahead with its slate of movies despite the disastrous flop of Harrison Ford‘s “Extraordinary Measures.”
A source told Page Six the unit was considering “slashing all marketing and production budgets by 50 percent” after the $31 million Ford flick — about a father racing against time to cure a rare disease killing his kids — was panned by the critics and took in a measly $6 million its opening weekend.
The picture flopped despite an extensive marketing campaign across CBS’s television shows and billboards. The Post’s Lou Lumenick drubbed it as “basically a tear-jerking TV disease-of-the-week flick on the big screen,” and the LA Times called it “a film that wouldn’t make the Showtime [also owned by CBS] or HBO quality-cut.”
The failure of the picture — the first from CBS Films, which was created a couple of years ago to put the network in the feature business and produce up to six movies a year with budgets of up to $50 million — has led to doubts among some CBS suits.
One honcho told us, “Unit bosses are saying they are going to have to slash all marketing and production budgets by 50 percent off the back of this failure. Some executives at CBS are saying this seems like more of a vanity project for Les Moonves to turn himself into a movie mogul than a realistic money-making venture.”
But a rep for CBS Films said their next three movies “would go out as planned and are currently testing very well with audiences.” They are “The Back-Up Plan,” a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lopez, out April 16; “Beastly,” a teen drama with Vanessa Hudgens out July 13; and “Faster,” an action thriller starring Dwayne Johnson, out Nov. 19.
When asked about slashed budgets, the rep added: “This is absolutely not true at all. Whoever told you this does not know what they are talking about. ‘Extraordinary Measures’ played great to its audiences who rated it very high.”