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Just like with Green Lantern, the blame falls on the studio for the hugely bloated budget. Both movies would have had to have been home runs to have a chance at profit. Bring them in with reasonable $125 million budgets and they would have been okay, especially with John Carter's overseas take.
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When I saw the movie last Saturday, there were about 40 people for the matinee showing on a very rainy day... everyone clapped when the movie was over(in a good way-not sarcastic), they liked it. I liked it but expected more. As was said in one of the 6 threads in this forum about this movie, it is a good popcorn movie. I have always loved the JC stories in spite of some of their absurdities... people liking them have always been in minority as most people have never read or heard of John Carter. I so wanted this movie to do well and have everyone love it that it's kind of dissapointing that most people didn't seem to like it and are blasting it and keep pointing out what a flop it is. This could have been way better but as it is, dispite Disney dropping the ball on so many fronts, is still a pretty good flick!Comment
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This fan made trailer (which briefly touches on the history of JC and the far reaching influence of the stories) is actually better than anything Disney's marketing department came up with:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzPVYy7LHIoPUNY HUMANS!Comment
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I have to wonder where'd the money go? The only thing I find lacking is the look of the Green Skins. When you compare them to Gollum or the aliens in Avatar you have to ask: is that the best they can do? These are not all A-List actors in the roles so I suspect salaries were not that large. Or did they actually build whole sets instead of doing CGI extensions? There's a lot of great visuals in this film I can see where much of the money went but in some aspects they seem not to have spent that much.
That puzzles me too. I don't know how you would classify this type of film outside of Sci-Fi/Fantasy. The hero travels back and forth thru the story from where he started to other locales, sometimes more than once, on his journey. Would this classify as a road picture? It's structure is kind'a similar to Time Bandits and Silver Streak in that way. It wasn't hard to follow.
Maybe the look of it all didn't hook audiences. So's not to throw out any spoilers, in the trailer, the arena scene does resemble the one in Attack of the Clones on Genosis. Maybe people think JCM is copying SW when it's the reverse.
The costumes of the Red Skins didn't strike me as very Sci-Fi. I kept thinking they were like Romans. Also I would expect Martians to have accents but British accents? Why not have them speak more American?
Maybe audiences are so jaded that they prefer space battles to arial battles. They can accept space craft more than winged airships.Comment
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I loved the movie, but I can only pay full price so many times.
Someone else has to go to make a film a marketable property.
It didn't have that "Hunger Games" (non sci-fi geek) feel that will undoubtedly get sequels green-lit and a pile of marketing tie-ins.
Have you seen The 2005 Paramount Production reel (made to bring interest to one of the early JC productions which never got off the ground)?
John Carter of Mars 2005 Paramount Presentation Reel on Vimeo
They were really trying to sell a lot of the elements people have brought up that they wanted. More breathtaking visuals on Mars, more blood in the battles. Some of the people who worked on that version were retained for the Disney version.
Of course it is pretty obvious that the 2005 Paramount version was proposed well before Avatar. I'm hoping that maybe the film will get enough attenton to have a TV Series. Some day on the future when we are (MORE) old and grey...Cheers,
Guyx1Comment
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My wife, son, and I just saw JC thisafternoon as a family, it was my 2nd time. My wife is not into this sort of movie but liked the it( better than Avatar which was a rare sci-fi flick she liked). My 6 yr old son loved it(especially Woola the Callot). I liked it better the 2nd time myself as I watched it just as a movie and not as a fanboy of the Barsoom books. Then I watched the link that GUYx1 posted from Parmount and WOW!!! That is amazing and more in line of what I wanted JC to be. Many thanks for that link sir! I hope if there is any sort of redux or sequal, that Paramount can somehow get the rights back from Disney. I also saw the footage posted of the trailer the fan put together and it too was fantastic! Much better than anything Disney put together.Comment
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You know, maybe they should have released in the summer, when all the kids were out of school. Or at least during spring break.
Seems like the perfect summer movie for bored kids. Releasing it now though, seems like you'd have to check or clear the schedule to see it, or weekends (I wouldn't know).
I dunno, just a theory.Comment
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That wasn't a Bad Movie ..., and Gyllenhall was Much more Believable in that Role, than anything else he had previously done imo ...., He also Worked His Arse off to Get into shape for that Movie.
As for Carter ...
I just don't usally see alot of movies in Theater.
.... It's just reality.
Besides a Handful of things ...., Most of my Movie Viewing is saved for DVD.... The Original Knight ..., Often Imitated, However Never Duplicated. The 1st Knight in Customs.
always trading for Hot Toys Figures .
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I liked the movie. It wasn't great, but it was good. I've never read any of the source material, but I know it influenced a great deal of the science fiction and fantasy material that came after it and that may be where the movie suffered the most. Everything in it has been done before.
The way the media reports on films today doesn't help a movie that needs to find an audience. I saw a matinee of the movie on opening day, but by the time I got out of the show, reports on twitter and various websites had declared the movie dead on arrival. Such reports tend to scare people off and makes it even easier for people making choices to pass on a movie and go to another one or not at all. Who wants to pay $10+ a head for a possible bad experience.
But the real issue is how much money Disney spent on the film. It would have had to have been a blockbuster like say the Hunger Games is to recoup its cost. Unfortunately the first-generation rabid fans of Jon Carter are mostly in the grave.Comment
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>the real issue is how much money Disney spent on the film
Wasn't most of the budget put in advertising? I seem to recall hearing that the majority of the budget didn't actually go into the movie.
Don C.Comment
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^^^I would think that's the other way around. I see how it was an expensive film by the SPFX, the elaborate sets plus it was shot in America for the desert scenes.
As far as promotion-I've hardly seen any. Disney owns ABC TV network. How come they didn't have lots of TV spots and couldn't do a Making of...TV special to generate interest? I know a lot of the Sci-Fi mags have tanked in recent years so advance interviews are harder to find. I don't recall seeing Disney's own Mag "Twenty Three" having promotion on the film, (unless I missed it).Comment
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The problem was having Disney's name attached in the first place. With the exception of the Pirates series,most will steer clear of any Disney live-action fare.Comment
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Usually when a movie ends you hear some sort of reaction from the theatre attendees, whether that be kids telling their parents "wow, that was awesome" or the guy sitting next to you remarking to nobody in particuliar "That was good". When I saw this film nobody said anything, it was the most "meh" reaction from an audience I've ever witnessed. If the film was good, and it wasn't, word of mouth would have made up for the poorly directed marketing. The movie tanked because it sucked.Comment
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^^^Yeah, I bought the first Trilogy just to see what happens next. It was written 100 yrs ago so it's a little different from what I'm used to but it's fully enjoyable.Comment
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