John Carter Might Be The New Biggest Box Office Disaster

Hmm I did wonder why they were filming quite a lot of Avengers 2 in the UK. Now I know.

 

Is "instalment" a British word or another typo in the ever-increasing spelling errors in major publications? Can't tell you how many simple errors I see on CNN.com and other outlets these days. Don't have time for ONE editor to look over a story before hitting "click"?

Anyway, I still wonder if Disney did ANY market research on the character's popularity. I live right where Edgar Burroughs did and not only is the town called "Tarzana" (though he lived next door in Encino technically now that lines were drawn later - his estate is still two streets down).

The post office is all Tarzan. Original comic books, cassettes, read-alongs, original paperbacks, etc. All Tarzan. There might be a John Carter of Mars book, but it's definitely not front an center.

They surely knew this couldn't have turned into a musical. The way they were going to monetize this, had it worked, seems pretty standard - but that was a HUGE gamble that kids would run to Toys R Us to buy action dolls of... what are the characters again besides John Carter of which I know nothing? Were they hoping for a cartoon TV spin-off to coincide?

These books aren't even read in school, like The Chronicles of Narnia. At least Disney agreeing to release the third film was based on historical film performance and educational strategies and faith-based reach-out (not something Fox wanted to continue).

Disney should make a Horatio Alger story based on one of the many, many pulp novellas. If the folks at Disney work hard, be reasonable about what they spend, and the film succeeds on a moderate scale - not a blockbuster but a good ROI, then I will buy a Horatio Alger figurine. With Disney-imprint and everything.

This is what Edgar's great-grandson, Wes Anderson does. And I'd buy a Gene Hackman ("The Royal Tenenbaum") figurine if they existed!

Jeff

 

Stupid me, I bought the bluray (I had recently gotten a 3D TV). Tried twice, I couldn't get through it. Some time later, I found the books at Gutenberg so I read one of them, I think the first one. It didn't do much for me either, although I might have enjoyed it more as a kid.

 

I read recently that the rights have reverted back to the Burroughs estate. I still think it could work as a TV show that borrowed elements of the novels to tell a similar story, much like The Walking Dead.

 

I really enjoyed the books growing up. . . and liked the movie! Seems a series of these would be a nice complement to endless superhero movies. Ah well, America gets what it wants. It's often not what I want but that's okay.

 

Yes, that could definitely work -- but it would not be an inexpensive story to tell, because of the number of effects.

I've said before, the three biggest problems with the Disney movie for me:

1) the actor cast had very little charisma (though he looked the part)

2) the script was just about humorless and needed more light-hearted moments (though the novel is fairly serious)

3) and the structure of the movie was just plain weird, with far too much time spent in the 1860s (the opening Bryan Cranston sequence)

It didn't help that director Andrew Stanton reportedly shot the movie twice, which effectively doubled the production cost. If they had made it for maybe $150M with a charismatic hero (think a 30-year-old Harrison Ford), it might have worked, particularly if you folded in more elements of the later books.

I read most of the John Carter of Mars books as a kid, and I thought they were generally good adventure stories. The problem is, films that needed this much CG -- like a humanoid creature that stood 10 feet tall and had 4 arms -- would've been impossible to do convincingly in the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s. Only once CG effects took over in the 1990s, then that allowed a movie like this to be made. Unfortunately, so many other films that borrowed from John Carter (like Star Wars, Flash Gordon, and many other fantasy films) had already come out, so the public couldn't be dazzled by any new ideas.

 

Maybe as an animated series, but yes, it would be very much been there-done that.

 

The spectacular failure of the live-action film has probably killed any chance somebody will try to revive it as a TV series, animated or otherwise.

There was a good article (referenced earlier in this thread) in Vanity Fair about how director Andrew Stanton basically had complete autonomous power to do anything he wanted on the film, including going $50M over budget. I'm amazed anybody could look at this thing early on and go, "yeah, this will be a hit!" Crazy. You could see in the early trailers there was nothing there.

 

Didn't see this in a cinema, but bought the 3D Blu-Ray out of curiosity. I hadn't read any of the books as a child so there was no nostalgic memory thing that may have influenced my viewing, so my opinion after sitting through the thing is that as a film it was dreadful, overlong and basically uninteresting. Hard to see how this ever got the go ahead, some stupid focus group on drugs I suppose; maybe not on drugs but focus group nonetheless.

 

It might have even been duller in 2-D....? I'd like to apply for a position in the unfocused group. That's sounds like proper work!

 

Instalment is the Queen's English and is spelled correctly for the UK.

Derek

 

And just to update this thread, here's an alarming profit & loss statement for the film:



YIKES...

http://thejohncarterfiles.com/2015/...-loss-statement-for-john-carter-is-revealing/