John Carter of Mars

[estefan]

Yep, around the same time Disney released the billion dollar-grossing Alice in Wonderland.

[EricJ]

Now known in the industry as "Geek Week", the college-spring-break week for
- 1 cult-director (like Tim Burton or Zack Snyder...Seeing as it was "300" that started the whole thing)
- 1 cult-comic title (unless that was the Snyder film)
- 1 geek SFX-heavy piece (we're also getting the Clash of the Titans sequel)
- 1 bestseller YA novel franchise (Hunger Games this year, instead of Percy Jackson)
and
- at least 1 "Goth-romance fairytale retelling, with a minimum of one Twilight alumni in the cast or crew", since that's why studios thought all those fangirls went to see Alice.

Oh, and then we get the Dreamworks/Illumination CGI comedies for Easter/parents/kids-vacation.

[droosan]

Point taken .. even though, personally, I thought Tim Burton's Alice film was pretty awful (as an adaptation of Lewis Carroll, anyway).

Then again, the spectacular failure of Mars Needs Moms occured in the same week, earlier this year.

I guess I had just assumed -- especially given its budget -- that John Carter would be Disney's 'tentpole' summer film for 2012.



*checks summer 2012 movie schedule*


Brave - June 11, 2012

Now it makes sense. But it still seems -- to me -- that these release dates are 'reversed' ..

[Ben]

They were, Droo. Brave was supposed to open before JCM but they switched. I don't think Disney were too confident about Burton's Alice either, but no doubt they're hoping the same lightning strikes.

Now you can see why we started to "worry" a bit more about this one, when the date was changed.

[estefan]

With the excellent reviews that Mission: Impossible IV has gotten, I hope that boosts peoples' confidence in John Carter. After all, a lot of critics are saying that Brad Bird's direction is the main reason it works so well. So, in a way, that's good buzz that Stanton can make the live-action jump successfully as well.

[GeorgeC]

Can we say huge tax write-off?

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/is-john-ca ... eedfetcher



Droo,

Have you heard more this than the rest of us about this film?

The article I linked to is right... What is this film about anyway, and WHY OH WHY would you release a supposedly big tentpole film in the middle of March????

Hardly a word uttered about it, hardly any advertising. That inspires such confidence!

[Ben]

The vibe I'm getting off this is that's it's gearing towards a Tron: Legacy audience but hasn't bothered actually going after that audience!

The whole Tron campaign could have been a template for this: introducing the character and backstory, sneaking out bits of footage and, oh I don't know, maybe holding a storming Comic-Con panel and releasing the film late July?

Nope...all too simple.

I suspected something was up when the Pixar name started going missing in the publicity, then when "Mars" was stupidly dropped from the title, and the release date shows very little faith, with no mention that this comes "from the director of Finding Nemo and WALL-E".

This could have easily been built up like Tron was, but Disney obviously (and less obviously, but still evidently, the top brass at Pixar) have little faith in this and are hoping for a lack of blockbusters around its release for it to make a splash.

I've a feeling it will make more internationally, where it could reach the projected $400m break-even figure, but I can't see a sequel being made. But then that might be all for the good rather than limping along like the uncertain Narnia franchise...

If this does bomb - hopefully down to Disney's bad marketing than Stanton's direction - any bets on how long he remains at Disney or starts on that Nemo sequel?

[Dacey]

Hopefully the quality of the movie will save it from total failure. Official reviews have been held back for the moment, but the general buzz surrounding John Carter (of Mars!!) froom what I've heard is that it's a fun, well-made sci-fi flick. But the marketing, as others have said, has done a horrible job of actually telling audiences what the movie is about. It's going to look like "Twilight's" Jacob Black in space for those who aren't in the know.

[James]

Outside the marketing complaints I've heard nothing but good reviews online for it. Hopefully word of mouth can trump bad promotion.

[Randall]

Personally, I'm totally pumped for it. I just hope enough other movie fans are.

I spoke to someone my own age today who is a fairly big movie buff, and a sci-fi fan and special effects afficianado--- and he asked me if John Carter took place on another planet. Uh.... not a good sign. But then, Dis seems to be doing their best to avoid telling people that the story takes place on Mars.

[GeorgeC]

That's the crux of the problem, Rand.

Had this film been made before space probes had actually VISITED Mars and confirmed what a desolate, inhospitable place it is then yeah I could see suspension of disbelief.

The problem is that we've been inundated since the mid-1970s with mission after mission looking for any signs of life -- and now water -- and it's a nasty place for anybody who doesn't like red and orange shades...

(Of course, I could be giving the general public more credit than I should be for knowledge in the sciences. With all the 9/11 truthers and moon-hoax truthers I see online, my head hurts. I'm still amazed by a lot of the things people HERE say that aren't supported by what I've learned over a lifetime and talking to people who actually worked in some of these industries... But that's another topic altogether.)

That and by advertising it looks like a very generic fantasy/adventure movie.

I guess I shouldn't be that surprised... This company hasn't been the Disney I knew since at least 1982. In this current film industry, even ILM produces bad special effects and poorly-designed films.

Not a good sign at all...

It's insane to spend that kind of money on any film, good or bad economy. That kind of spending has to come back to haunt the studios again and again.

(Mark my words, if this film is enough of a financial flounder on the market, it will diminish the Pixar leaders. I'm sure given the vicious back-stabbing corporate culture Eisner left at Disney that people are looking to see the Pixar guys fall flat on their faces.)

What will happen when the gravy train of home video releases dries up altogether??? How can any company afford to keep spending like this when the writing is on the wall for their last, most secure source of income?

Remember, the music industry isn't what it was prior to the debut of mass file-sharing and torrenting on the webs in the mid-1990s. Mp3 and other file compression formats killed the record store chains; what's left has been massively downsized from what it was even 5-6 years ago. I'd say the music aisles in Best Buy are maybe at best 1/4 the size they were 10 years ago. Sure, money is still being made in the music industry but it has shrunk and mp3 downloads are nowhere near as profitable as physical media sales were.

It's only a matter of time before digital downloading overtakes ALL physical media... This may take a bit longer for long-form video (re: feature films) because of bandwidth issues but copyright law or not, it's going to happen.

[EricJ]

Personally, I'm totally pumped for it. I just hope enough other movie fans are.
I spoke to someone my own age today who is a fairly big movie buff, and a sci-fi fan and special effects afficianado--- and he asked me if John Carter took place on another planet. Uh.... not a good sign. But then, Dis seems to be doing their best to avoid telling people that the story takes place on Mars.

They've just now started the critic-blurb ads about the (very) unexpected rave reviews it's been getting--
Which, if they're not going to tell me the coherent plot, is the one other thing that COULD get me into the theater...Since my question was "Prince of Persia, or live-action Pixar script?"
The new emphasis on critic raves would push my expectations into the latter.

[estefan]

This is definitely the most curious I've been about how something will perform, since Tangled. However, this is something that's not quite as guaranteed. Andrew Stanton is my favourite of the Pixar Team, so I'm hoping it's very successful and I will definitely throw in my support.

But, yeah, I'm pretty sure the Disney execs and even Stanton himself are likely twitching their fingers in nervousness over the next couple of weeks. Come the following Friday evening (or Saturday morning, in my case), we should have a good indication of how it will do and hopefully, it pulls a How to Train Your Dragon and manages to hold on over the next number of weeks.

[James]

Brad Bird on Twitter today had the best descriptive phrase I've heard yet that should have been in the trailer.

"Epic sci-fi fantasy from the creators of TARZAN and FINDING NEMO"

[Randall]

Really, marketing this film should have been a piece of cake. Hard to believe that Dis is so afraid of selling the film based on its historical merits. I mean, who wouldn't want to see a film based on the first literary superhero, directed by a Pixar genius? It should sell itself based on just that!