Ash Ketchum

A little before our time, Bob Clampett (famous Looney Tunes director) proposed a series of cartoons based on the Carter books back in the 1930s. He even pitched the idea to Burroughs. Now, that's the version I wanted to see.

I found this on YouTube:
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/bTAlgZlqwnQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Supermallet

Ash, very cool.

Double_Oh_7

Meh. It didn't require a lot of range... he was eye candy who mumbled the few lines he got each episode.

PenguinJoe

I went to the movies tonight, some girls wondered if John Carter was the name of the actor. I don't think they've seen FNL.

Jaymole

This is what happens when you try to market a movie to as many different demographics as you can...I hope Disney will learn a lesson from this.

Ash Ketchum

An article in the Business section of today's New York Times seems to indicate that Stanton made a lot of the key marketing decisions on JOHN CARTER and no one at the studio had the balls to tell him no:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/bu...ef=todayspaper

AVP77

I knew they should have stuck with Kerry Conran as the director

whoopdido

Wow, sounds like a God-awful mess.

In the review poll, I voted "good, but not great." It was ok and had some cool visuals. I certainly didn't hate it and was entertained enough for 2 hours, but I have no desire to buy it on blu ray when it comes out and really don't have any desire to watch it again.

The article talked about all the bad marketing mistakes that were made. That may or may not be true, but none of that affected me in any way. I thought it looked cool and wanted to see it. It just wasn't that great of a movie.

Lynn Collins was uber hot though.

d2cheer

Taylor Kitsch sinks BATTLESHIP!!

And that will be his fault as well because we all know that a movie based on the board game Battleship was a great idea.

Hokeyboy

Dragon Tattoo

Rich Ross looks like a madman in that NY Times image.

Dr. DVD

Interesting how much press this movie is getting for being such a bomb. Typically when movies tank not much is mentioned.

brainee

From that article:

devilshalo

*cough*waterworld*cough*

Dragon Tattoo

I don't know what press you read, but epic bombs on the level of John Carter usually get tons of news coverage (i.e. Waterworld, Ishtar, Heaven's Gate, Howard the Duck).

Dr. DVD

Actually, I remember people thinking Waterworld had a decent opening weekend. Most of the press for Waterworld was before it was released. I didn't pay attention to media in the days of Ishtar and Howard the Duck, so I guess they had coverage.

My Other Self

Since Ishtar and Howard the Duck were before my time, the only big bomb I remember being hyped was Waterworld. This was in the days before widespread internet but I remember reading an article in the local newspaper about all of it's problems.

I don't know if John Carter is on that level but I see a lot of hoopla over how poorly this performed.

bluetoast

This will probably be a case study for Disney in the future.

devilshalo

Well, like Waterworld, John Carter may have to depend on international box office to help it break even/make a profit. Waterworld opened to only $22M domestic with almost a $200M budget. Had it not been for the international take, its paltry $88M domestic would label it a huge bomb.

devilshalo

I thought their case study were the first two Narnia films I don't think they want to repeat that again.

whoopdido

Don't you mean the last two? The first one was a huge success.

devilshalo

The last Narnia film was a Fox film.

DonnachaOne

Typically when movies tank, the studios know in advance, thanks to test screenings, tracking and plain ol' watching the flick. When you're stuck with a dog, you don't want to lose any more cash than you have to. You downplay the marketing, release the film as counter-programming to a film expected to do well, spin the results, and release news about future big movies to help quell the discussion of the current trouble and get people talking about the good stuff to come.

When a film is as immense as John Carter, both in investment and expectation, you can't use the same money-saving strategy. A film like this needs a huge marketing campaign and tie-ins to help cover the investment. So you splash on the advertising, preparation and market penetration, hoping that if you can get enough people talking about the film, and convince them that the film is a must-see event, that people will ignore reviews of friends or critics.

The curious thing with John Carter is that Disney really didn't do that.

John Carter's failure - and make no mistake, it is a disappointment - has nothing to do with Taylor Kitsch, or the quality of the animation, or 3D prices. It has everything to do with what people expected of it. The influential John Carter series of books, loved as they may be by Burroughs fans, are not nearly as famous or culturally significant as they once were. When people saw the first trailers, reaction was not awful, but they had a very important question - "who is John carter and why does he matter?"

Disney never answered this.

Instead, the obtuse and mystifying ads for the film continued. Unless they were looking the character up, no-one knew anything about the character or story, or why any of it mattered. Moviegoers who were already bemused tuned the film out. Those who may have been off the fence wrote it off as an Avatar or Star Wars rip-off (and who could blame them, when no-one was telling them any different?). Even those that might have been interested from the beginning began to wonder just why the advertising was presented in such broad strokes. Were Disney trying to hide the bad parts of the film?

The trailer problem carried over to the print campaign. The first teaser - a b&w image of Kitch with a red, stylized "JCM" overlaid - did nothing to hint at what sort of movie people could expect. The final one-sheet, with Kitsch in barbarian attire in front of an obscured red landscape and sky, did little more to guide the crowds. The most prominent aspect of any poster, even the character posters (a misguided notion, since Disney had failed to make any of the characters seem interesting or important at this point), was the name JOHN CARTER in big yellow letters, looking both imposing and bland at once.

Even the name of the film was kept as disinteresting as possible, a failed attempt at creating mystique. A Princess of Mars became just John carter of Mars, then John Carter. Some have posited that Disney dropped " - of Mars" to try and avoid the stigma of movies involving Mars; Mars Needs Moms failing so hard last year, and Mission to Mars failing on just about every level a decade ago, likely gave them little confidence (though one can safely assume they should have know Mars was intrinsic when they greenlit the project years ago). If so, it may have been the damning move. By removing "Mars" from the title and thrust of the campaign, Disney removed any anchor for the film. Now it was just another guy with a boring name on some alien world.

Late in the campaign, Disney started to release videos of director Andrew Stanton talking about how much the old stories meant to him, how much they influenced modern fantasy lit and films, and how much people would love John Carter. It was too little, too late.

So, why are people talking about John Carter's failure? It's not purely out of spite toward the film; a lot of people really enjoy it. It's because the film's failure is an interesting story of one folly after another. Other studios are looking at it as what not to do in future. Film analysts are calling Disney on their mishandling and underestimation of the audience. Awful moviegoers who made their mind up that the film was terrible without giving it a chance in the first place revel in their "vindication". Fans bemoan that they may never get followups.

AVP77

Apparently Disney executives gave Stanton the power to overrule the marketing department on the whole marketing campaign: http://www.vulture.com/2012/03/john-...t-trailer.html

DRG

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed that. All I could think of is how that pic would be great for some sort of meme image.