John Carter of Mars

[Ben]

Lone Ranger's budget hasn't been "severely" cut. What was it, $15-20m down? Not a lot on a $210m picture!

But I agree that it doesn't make sense the amount they are spending on it, unless they're doing some pretty incredible things with it (which I wouldn't doubt, but it's still going to bomb: who remembers the Lone Ranger, now, or doesn't think it sounds "old").

I mean, I'll see it, but then I also saw John Carter...

[Dacey]

Actually, I always get angry when I hear a studio like Disney is making a budget cut, especially for a special effects film. Whether they make money or not, you can't make movies like "John Carter" on the cheap. When you try to make this stuff for less dough, you end up with something like Pirates: OST, which obviously made a ton of cash, but wasn't nearly as "big" or as exciting as the first three films.

And for what it's worth, "Hunger Games" could've used a much bigger budget, or a more capable director than Gary Ross, who may not have known how to handle the money given to him. As a result, the movie has surprisingly little action--there have been "Twilight" films with more action than this has--, and what we do get of the fights is so quick and confusingly shot that it's sometimes hard to even know what's going on. Of course, the press is too busy praising the film simply because of its incredible cash flow. But the fans deserved a more epic film than this, and what really makes it hurt is that Lionsgate knew that this was going to see huge returns from the beginning. They just decided to make it cheaper because they knew it would make money no matter what.

Don't get me wrong. It's still a "decent" adaptation, I guess. Just not one that I see blowing fans of the series away, or bringing in too many new fans. But maybe I'll feel a little nicer about it whenever I give it a second viewing.

Anyway...what was I supposed to be talking about? Oh, yeah, "John Carter." I thought it was fun, and the 3-D conversion to my eyes at least was pretty good. I almost saw it a second time after Hunger Games on Friday just to help encourage a sequel getting made, but at this stage, it seems pointless to even hope for that to happen anymore.

[Randall]

Future Shop metal packaging:



Well, I like this better than the standard Blu-ray packaging. It just seems like Disney wants this film to continue to fail. The Blu-ray covers have boring font, bad Photoshop, and no excitement. But the metal packaging at least looks less awkward.

[Ben]

All of JCOM's promo art has been a-w-f-u-l, and the disc covers aren't helping. I'll stick with the standard BD packaging as that's what's on the way for review, but I agree that metal case looks more like it should do. Then again, I wasn't really "sold" on the various posters either...

[Dacey]

John Carter looks like 80 feet tall on that thing! Of course, I don't think we'll be getting that cover here in the states anyway.

[EricJ]

John Carter looks like 80 feet tall on that thing! Of course, I don't think we'll be getting that cover here in the states anyway.

Even as a poster, thought it was "Eye Strain: the Movie".
(That, more than the "JCM" poster was one that officially pushed my opinion over to "Either Rich's a looney, or they're trying to sink this one.")
Scientists believe people have an innate subconscious repellence to bright glaring red-orange, and yep, worked on me.

At least the current US cover tells there ARE giant white apes in the movie, which, y'know....would've been a nice thing to know while it was still in theaters.

[Randall]

The standard Blu-ray covers do give a little more info on what's in the movie; but of course they're still boring and poorly designed (with the 3D and non-3D ones being basically lazy flips of each other). I do like that the metal cover at least suggests Mars with its blinding red-ness. I think that's why I prefer it.

But even the metal cover could have come off better. Honestly, it's like Disney had interns handle all the marketing for this film, and they weren't especially talented interns either. The whole effort's been an epic fail.

But I liked the movie!

[EricJ]

(with the 3D and non-3D ones being basically lazy flips of each other).!

Usually, 3D customers like to brag that the 2D edition gets the new "marketing" cover, while the separate 3D edition gets the original theatrical poster art on the cover.
In this case, though...we know better: Neither one did.

[Daniel]

John Carter just may be the biggest Box Office flop ever... gasp?

[Randall]

So undeserved. Don't get me started...

[Dacey]

I'd argue that you can't actually figure out what the "biggest bomb ever" is simply because there are too many factors at play in such things. It's like trying to name the most expensive movie ever made.

[Randall]

Exactly. What is the definition of "bomb" anyhow?

Please do not answer that. It was rhetorical.

[Ben]

As we all know (stating the obvious here), there are plenty of massively earning film releases that are bombs in another meaning of the word.

Even Cutthroat Island, as cheesy and often misguided as it was, is more entertaining than most huge hits. I mean, look how bad Lion King looks compared to what it’s hauled in.

There is no making sense of what a bomb is, even though we obviously have a clear definition monetary-wise, but that doesn’t account for the creativity or lack of. Truth be told, most films lose money or only just about break even, and they always have done.

[EricJ]

Exactly. What is the definition of "bomb" anyhow?
Please do not answer that. It was rhetorical.

I'll answer it anyway:
There's an overlooked debate about how a "Bomb" or a "Flop" differs from a "Box-office disappointment"--
Short answer, a "Disappointment" disappoints you because it had enough basic competence to lead you to expect a good movie from the trailer, before unfortunate scheduling, studio budget problems, or, ahem, bad marketing.
A "Flop", OTOH, is a psychotic ill-conceived mess that you could see coming a mile away, has no one but itself and its own producers to blame, and made enough basic anti-intuitive mistakes with its audience to lose every single danged penny it lost.
(For example, the '98 Dean Devlin "Godzilla" was a "flop", last summer's Godzilla was a "box-office disappointment". Good riddance to both of them, but one was more watchable than the other.)

Looking up the article, I'd wondered, "Wait, wasn't '47 Ronin' supposed to be the biggest box-office flop of all time?"
For illustration, if you can sit through John Carter and (reasonably) enjoy it, it was a "disappointment"; if you can't sit through five minutes of racist Hollywood attempts to put Keanu Reeves and CGI monsters into a Japanese historical epic, that's a "flop".

(That's not one of my movie concepts, I still credit an Entertainment Weekly critic for this eye-opening concept in one of his reviews:
http://movieactivist.blogspot.com/2016/ ... s-not.html )

[EricJ]

Even Cutthroat Island, as cheesy and often misguided as it was, is more entertaining than most huge hits. I mean, look how bad Lion King looks compared to what it’s hauled in.

I've seen Cutthroat Island, and it was a mess. Here's where we get the "Flop vs. Disappointment" ethic at work.
It was three years before Disney's Pirates, and though there was the idea we wanted an old-fashioned pirate epic back again, this one was delivered premature.
(Also, Geena Davis was originally supposed to play Anne Bonney, until they discovered her story didn't make a good movie, so, like most action epics, they...just made up crap.)

One thing "Flops" have in common is the lack of restraint: They either think they're brilliant, or the minute it occurs to them it might not be, they throw MORE money at it.
Like a gambler, there's the mentality to stay in the game no matter how badly you're losing, since pulling out would be even more expensive...So you convince yourself you're winning.