'John Carter:' Biggest Bomb of All-Time?
Early numbers tell a shocking tale
"Cowboys & Aliens" was, by all accounts—and accepted accounting methods—a monumental stinker, making $174 million worldwide on a $160 million budget. Why did it fail? Industry prognosticators indicated that, for one thing, it wasn't based on any well-known, pre-existing brand, or at least not one the public had any awareness of. Strike one. Strike two, it was a western! With aliens! The last sci-fi western most people can actually remember was "Wild Wild West," seemingly the lone bomb in Will Smith's otherwise sterling tenure. Plus it had a ridiculously silly title. Strike three.
I first picked up all eleven books in this series by ERB in 1979.
I have read the entire series at least eight times since.
My wife has read it through once.
My 16yo has read it through once.
Granted, my 12yo has not but he does not like classic Sci-fi at all either.
Sure Corwin, no one has read the John Carter of Mars series.
BTW Corwin, do you belive everyone out there is just a copy of you?
I will see this film, but I will not see it at the cineplex.
I will see it at the discount theatre or on disc.
Have you people seen the cineplex prices out there?
Outrageous!
$30 for a family of four at the local cineplex to see a matinee!!!
We go to the cineplex maybe once every three years, if even that often, because of the extreme prices.
Again, I will see this movie, at least once.
I loved the books.
Mexbeachrat...another misinformed person...
The story leads one to believe that John Carter was transported to the distant past on Mars where the world was in it's death throes. Even then the red race of martians maintained great factories that produced air.
And there IS an atmosphere on Mars but far too thin to support life as we know it. Have you ever actually read the actual science?. Dust storms are common and dust storms require an atmosphere...hmmmm?
So if you're going to pan a movie you haven't even seen get the science right will ya.
I introduced the series to my 16 year old son and he has read through book 3. He saw the trailer the other day and sat down and re-read book one in a little over 1 sitting.
I am definitely going to see this movie and I think all of us fans should talk it up to all our friends and younger family members who will enjoy it. Maybe we can help buoy it up.
It definitely has the potential to be a block buster!
Books nobody has read? According to the comments before me, it seems quite a lot of people have read these books. Myself included. ERB's Barsoom series is fantastic so far (I'm through the Warlord of Mars). To know that they were written 100 years ago is astounding. This guy had an amazing imagination. Because of these books I have now gotten into a wholly different genre that I dismissed before.
This whole article is an assumption, with little research to back it up. I for one have been waiting for this movie for a while. Unfortunately it hasn't had a lot of PR, (apart from the Super Bowl). I hope that it's so good it will speak for itself. As for the budget, many of Disney's newest productions have cost a pretty penny. Tangled was $260 million. Toy Story 3 was $200 million. So why mention it? As for Taylor Kitsch, I've seen him in a few things, and I have good hopes for him.
Well, I for one don't need to be led around by the nose by some pre-existing brand name. By-the-way, John Carter as a brand has been around for 100 years. So much for that so-called first strike against "John Carter". Secondly, the "Wild Wild West" left no lasting impression on me as I didn't see it. I remembered the original television series on which it was based, and I thought it was a stupid concept. Add to that placing Will Smith in the role of black-governmental-super-agent in the post-civil war United States, to me, smacked of ridiculous historical revisionism. So, I didn't waste my time seeing the motion picture. So much for strike two. As for the silly title "Cowboys and Aliens", I thought it was clever. So, I was one of those fortunate individuals who saw it. I was entertained. So much for strike three.
"John Carter" is based on a lengthy series of books written by "Tarzan" author Edgar Rice Burroughs. While the original books may seem dated to modern readers I see no reason that they can't lend themselves to an entertaining distant-world-win-the battle-action-adventure-save-the-girl type of movie. In other words the kind of science fiction movie that people have been willing to see in droves since Star Wars.
I first read John Carter's stories back in the early 1970s. Last spring I picked up a reprinting of the first three John Carter novels and reread them over the summer. I look forward to a screening of the movie in March for my 56th birthday.
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