Peter Berg Blames 'Battleship' Failure on 'Avengers'

When Battleship first opened internationally back in April, it was a solid success.  With a gross of $235 million, the Peter Berg directed "Transformers at sea" film was primed to do at least modest business at the domestic box office, probably somewhere between $100-150 million, at least.

Little did Berg and pretty much everyone at Universal know, The Avengers was about to become the third highest grossing movie of all-time (just passed $600 million domestically today) when it opened the first weekend in May, two weeks before Battleship.

Now, with Battleship having pretty much bombed at the box office with a weak gross of only $63 million, Berg has come out and admitted it was a mistake to open the film in the heat of 'Avengers' mania and how he would have handled the release differently:

"We kind of ran into a wall when 'Avengers' refused to go away ... 'The Avengers' outperformed everything. It was impossible for 'Battleship' to get any oxygen."

"I would have loved to have come out three weeks before 'The Avengers' domestically, like we did internationally.  We did OK, but in hindsight — which my grandmother used to say is worth about a bucket of spit — we would have [released the movie] ahead of 'The Avengers,' not realizing it would have become, I think, the second biggest film in history behind 'Avatar.'"

Actually Pete, it's the third highest behind Titanic too, but we get the point.

However, I think there is some truth to what Berg is saying.  While I went into Battleship with low expectations, it ended up being a pretty solid popcorn, action flick that certainty deserved more then a $63 million domestic gross.  Had it opened in April like it did internationally, I really could have seen it hitting $150 domestically, considering there would have been no other real competition besides The Hunger Games, and that skewed to a different audience anyway.  Not to mention, since the film's star Taylor Kitsch had been the face of the other notable box office 'bomb' this year, John Carter, it would have been nice to see him catch a break (dude's talented, watch Friday Night Lights).

Regardless, the film's performance "is what it is."  Here's hoping it finds some success on DVD and Blu-ray (John Carter has already).

Source: MTV News