John Carter shaping up to be one of the costliest flops in movie history

[MIB41]

This article based on how Disney will have to report this film on their financial books. Wow!

Disney in $200m writedown for - FT.com

[wolfie]

I hate to say i told you so but..........................

[thunderbolt]

FT.com articles are only available to registered users and subscribers

[MIB41]

I hate to say i told you so but..........................

Yep. You did. Early reviews suggested this could be a hit and that's why I asked the question. Clearly that didn't pan out as the reviews piled in and the theaters well...no one piled into them.

[MegoMark71]

For those that missed it, it will be on cable next week.

[johnmiic]

Disney has no one to blame but themselves. Changed the title & not much promotion. You have to draw in the people who have not read the books too. The original title gives people unfamiliar with the source material at least some idea what it's about.

[Bruce Banner]

Yahoo has a similar article about why they think the movie didn't do well at the box office. I don't agree with all the points they make, but here it is anyway:

Five reasons John Carter was a huge flop

By Ben Skipper | Movie Editor's Blog – Tue, Mar 13, 2012 16:59 GMT

Disney sci-fi flick 'John Carter' has become one of the biggest flops in movie history. The studio have announced that the film's theatrical run will lose them $200m (£126m).
But why has this big-budget epic become such a disaster? We investigated...

It's all been done before
The film is based on the pulp novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, written between 1911 and 1940. The 'John Carter of Mars' stories inspired pretty much all modern sci-fi in some way from 'Star Wars' to 'Avatar', but because of this much of the action has a familiar feel.
Take James Cameron's 'Avatar', which replicates 'Carter's tired fish-out-of-water story and its lanky alien race. An unfortunate shot in the trailers of Carter covered head-to-toe in blue blood really didn't help matters. It's not really fair, but 'Carter' just felt derivative.

The title
'John Carter of Mars' tells the audience exactly what to expect; B-movie-style thrills a-plenty. However, the decision to change the name to simply 'John Carter' was just the tip of an iceberg of bad marketing decisions.
A handful of visually stark posters couldn't combat the bland trailers and the result was an insubstantial campaign that did little to help the film. The studio wasn't sure if they wanted families or sci-fi fans to see the film. In the end they got neither.

Taylor Kitsch is not a leading man
Hollywood bigwigs have seemingly decided that Kitsch is The Next Big Thing, with the star headlining 'Carter' and the upcoming 'Battleship'. On the evidence of the former, Tom Cruise shouldn't start losing his sleep just yet.
Kitsch was okay as Carter, but a film based on a series of pretty old books needed a better-known actor in the lead. The supporting cast didn't help. The biggest names attached were Willem Defoe (who voices a CG character) and Mark Strong who, surprise surprise, plays the film's bald villain.

Dr Seuss's The Lorax
The animated feature, which opened opposite 'John Carter' in the US, surprised everyone with a very strong box office showing in its opening week. It then topped charts for the second week in a row, beating the debuting Carter to the spot. The 'toon successfully captured the family audience that Disney were going for and doomed 'Carter' in the process.

The film was boring
None of this would've really mattered of course if 'John Carter' was a really, really good film. It wasn't. The general critical consensus was that it was an over-long, incoherent mess.
The Guardian said 'John Carter' was "oppressive and... interminably long", while USA Today reckoned "the characters are one-dimensional... even in 3-D". With a duff marketing campaign, this needed strong word-of-mouth, which is nigh-on impossible with such dire write-ups.

[Adam West]

I do plan on seeing it once it comes to dvd which may be sooner than later. Chances are I will probably like it. I only go to the movies a few times a year and just didn't feel the urgency to see this with all of the other good movies that are on deck in the coming weeks and months.

[Adam West]

"The Hunger Games" movie also could be playing a role despite not being released until Friday. Everywhere I turn, it's on every magazine cover, every news media outlet, radio program.....this movie is grabbing so much free publicity; I don't even think they need to run another trailer at this point. Everyone in my family wants to see "The Hunger Games" while I would have been the only one to show any interest in "John Carter". With a family of 5, and $9 a ticket for matinee, add in snacks and it is an easy $100 so I'm pretty particular about movies these days.

[MIB41]

Yahoo has a similar article about why they think the movie didn't do well at the box office. I don't agree with all the points they make, but here it is anyway:

I do agree that Taylor Kitsch is not leading man material yet. When I first saw a trailer for this, he was ending his run with Friday Night Lights. And I thought, "Okay...High school football player to Civil War veteran who goes to Mars? Uh..no. Don't buy that." And when I saw the budget, I thought Disney was out of their minds. Who invests $300 million in an unknown brand name? John Carter might be known in small fan circles, but certainly not in the common forum of society. Heck. Even Spider-man has not blown $300 million on a picture yet! So how do you justify this? Whoever made the call for this film needs to be fired. A basic instinct for business should have screamed "Run!" from this idea. I could have been John Carter's biggest fan and I would have said "no" to a $300 million dollar budget. There's no connection and that makes number two for Disney in high profile flops less than one year apart. The other being Cowboys and Aliens. A film I personally liked, but it never connected with main stream audiences in a crowded marketplace last summer. I'm sure execs are now sweating the Lone Ranger. I have more confidence in it because of the crew on board, but we shall see.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^Don't forget "Prince of Persia", another squandered franchise for Disney. They gambled on Jake Gyllenhall. I personally don't think the guy has leading man potential either. The two movies even looked a lot alike. Long-haired brunette guy in a leather harness running around in a fantastic desert setting. You think they would have learned from that. I understand it did decent business overseas, but tanked outright here.

Chris

[torgospizza]

None of this would've really mattered of course if 'John Carter' was a really, really good film. It wasn't. The general critical consensus was that it was an over-long, incoherent mess.

What I don't get is what was so incoherent about it. Did the reviewer take a lot of bathroom breaks or get popcorn refills while stuff was going on? I didn't find it at all hard to follow. And since when did 132 minutes become "over-long"? If he couldn't focus for an extra ten minutes, it's no wonder the plot seemed convoluted to him.

What amazes me is that everyone didn't fall in love with it, despite the fact our main sources of entertainment--even for mainstream adults--are kids' books and movies (Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, f.ex.).

[Adam West]

I admit I never read the book and neither did my kids. I have however read every single Harry Potter Book, Twilight Books (don't ask....I read them before allowing my pre-teen daughter to read them), and am about 1/4 of the way through the 3rd book of the Hunger Games (Mockinjay). I would be finished that by now, but my daughter (who doesn't normally read much devoured these books and desperately wanted to read Mockingjay so I stopped and let her read it).

[ctc]

>What amazes me is that everyone didn't fall in love with it,

There's been a few movies the last couple of years that I can't figure out why they were hated so much. For JC here, I suspect the big problem was that so much of it feels like old hat, even though it's actually original hat.

Don C.

[torgospizza]

For JC here, I suspect the big problem was that so much of it feels like old hat, even though it's actually original hat.

That's very well put. I'd give you a "Like" for this, if I were able.