For every giant hit owned by Disney, there seems to be a notable bomb. Disney currently owns several movies that count among the 10 highest-grossing of all time, including two “Avatar” movies, two “Avengers” movies, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “Zootopia 2,” and “Inside Out 2.” Collectively, those movies have earned over $2.084 trillion.

It’s a good thing those films were profitable, though, because Disney also must claim ownership of “John Carter,” “The Lone Ranger,” “The Marvels,” “The 13th Warrior,” “Strange World,” “Tomorrowland,” and, for the purposes of this article, “Mars Needs Moms.” Those films collectively lost about $1.247 billion. That may seem like small potatoes when compared to the $2.084 trillion, but I am never going to brush off over a billion dollars in losses. And that’s not even adjusted for inflation. 

“Mars Needs Moms” was a particularly strange project for Disney. It was released in 2011 and employed motion-capture animation to capture the bodily movements and facial performances of actors such as Seth Green, Dan Fogler, Elisabeth Harnois, Mindy Sterling, and Joan Cusack. 

It was based on a book by Berkeley Breathed, best known for the “Bloom County” newspaper comics. Breathed’s absurdist strips were widely celebrated during their initial heyday (1980 – 1989), and the cartoonist won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 for Editorial Cartooning. In 2007, when he had moved to producing only Sunday comics, Breathed also authored the children’s picture book “Mars Needs Moms!,” another marvelously whimsical and touching story about a boy named Milo who hates his mom. Martians, however, long for mothers of their own. Breathed had a way with words, describing moms as “giant, summer-stealing, child-working, perfumy garden goblins.” The book is good. The movie is not.Â