Disney director explains why 'Treasure Planet' bombed at the box office

Released in 2002, Treasure Planet had a $140 million budget and made $110 million.

However, it flopped at the box office. Now, Ron Clements, who directed the film, along with Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and Hercules, opened up about why the film bombed.

“We had some big hits, and we had some good hits, but Treasure Planet is a movie that meant a lot to me,” he told People.

However, he added, “It’s a movie we put a huge amount of work into — and some very beautiful work — by a lot of people … The marketing and promotion of the movie was probably not what it could have been."

“And then the fact that the studio wrote the movie off the Monday after it opened, which is kind of unprecedented, I’m sure it hurt the movie to a certain degree.”

“The write-off of the movie had a lot of attention,” he continued, adding, “It’s in all the newspapers; they’re joking about it on late-night TV. That was not a fun thing to go through.”

Not to mention, Clement said, “I think the movie suffered a little bit because [former Disney CEO] Michael Eisner and [former head of Walt Disney Feature Animation] Roy Disney were feuding at that point."

"That was getting back to us in a lot of ways," he shared.

Treasure Planet, meanwhile, had Disney's reportedly writing down $74 million.