John Carter of Mars

Must read profile in last week's New Yorker about Pixar's Andrew Stanton and the making of John Carter. I'm sorry it's not all free -- search the web and maybe its been posted elsewhere online.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/17/111017fa_fact_friend

(And if Deadlock is still around he could use this article as grist for a long running Wall-e vs. Incredibles debate).

Might it really be possible?in fact and not fancy?to venture with John Carter to the Kingdom of Helium on the planet Mars?
-- Carl Sagan

RedeemedChild said:

It looks as if that is a homage to Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope.

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Or that Lucas swiped the idea from Edgar Rice Burroughs. Don't Forget that Mr. Carter has been around in some form or another since 1911. That's a good 66 years before the world was swept by Star Wars, and probably forty years before a young Lucas got his hands on the books. Because you know he's read them.

Anyway.

A second full-length trailer was released. Embedded below for your viewing pleasure.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nlvYKl1fjBI?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The white ape moves spectacularly well.

There's also a teevee spot that was released yesterday.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4Z1bHJFQW4o" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I was just looking at the IMDB page for John Carter. Didn't realize Taylor Kitsch, who plays John Carter, is from Kelowna - where I lived for the past 12 years before moving to Calgary this summer.

Here are some amazing new promotional images.

http://media.sfx.co.uk/files/2011/12/John-Carter-021211-2.jpg

http://media.sfx.co.uk/files/2011/12/John-Carter-021211-6.jpg



http://media.sfx.co.uk/files/2011/12/John-Carter-021211-1.jpg

Cool pics. - Thanks for posting. Based on these pictures, it looks like some of the aliens/monsters in the film will be based on those great sculptures that were also posted - very nice.

I plan on re-reading Princess of Mars at some point soon to refresh my memory of this franchise before the film comes out; I also will probably get the Omnibus collection of the '70's Marvel comic series John Carter, Warlord of Mars when it's released early next year.

With all of the attention this film has been getting, I wonder if there will be a toy-line planned to promote the movie?! I couldn't find any info. on this - so, out of curiosity, I did some research - there have been very few John Carter of Mars-related toys; back in the mid-'90's there were some interesting Mars figures that came out as a sub-line to an interesting Tarzan toy-line by Trendmasters. However, there has never been a dedicated John Carter of Mars toyline (yet).

I'm also still puzzled as to why this film is called John Carter instead of "John Carter of Mars" - strange. When I first saw the original teaser trailer this past Summer, I knew immediately what the story was about since I had read some of the ERB novels. However, for the benefit of those who are completely unfamiliar with the franchise, why didn't Disney just add of Mars to the title? This would seem like a no-brainer to me - However, I'm no movie executive. Hopefully the film will do very well regardless.

I thought that last trailer was super neat. But again, I worry about the inevitable dum-dums who will accuse this of being an Avatar rip-off...Yikes.

phantom train said:

With all of the attention this film has been getting, I wonder if there will be a toy-line planned to promote the movie?!

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That's an interesting thought. (A 3 3/4" line would be perfect)

Still on the fence? In order to secure a smidgen of your hard earned disposable income and your patronage, Disney has released a ten-minute clip from John Carter of Mars for your viewing pleasure.

Thoughts?

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4HaE5Zs8dAY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I really want to give this one a chance, I like Burrough's Mars series and I've always kinda hoped an adaptation would come down the line and do it some justice.

Disney kinda dropped the marketing ball on this though . . . If you would just call it John Carter of Mars and not just "Some Guy: The Movie".

I plan to see it midnight on Thurs. (Partly because of the free Mondo Poster!)

So has anyone else here seen the movie yet?

I went yesterday and absolutely loved it!

While I have never read the books, I was vaguely familiar with the story and the character...mostly through my uncle who is a big fan. I remember him showing me the Frazetta paintings and telling me about the books, but for some reason I never got around to reading them. So anyway, I went into the film pretty cold, having no real background with the story and I was still blown away! I knew enough to not fall into the trap of viewing it as a rip off of Star Wars, Avatar, etc and was surprised to learn just how much those stories "borrowed" from the John Carter/Mars universe.

Anyway, I took the whole family yesterday and everyone enjoyed it...even my wife, who is normally a tough sell on anything remotely sci-fi/action adventure related.

I really think Disney dropped the ball big time on the marketing of this movie as the common movie goer probably won't bother to see it. The theater was pretty empty yesterday, odd during Spring Break. I have a feeling it's not going to do well box office wise, which is a shame because I would really love to visit Barsoom again. I'm definitely picking up the books now.

I saw it and thought it extraordinary. Seriously was one of the best times I've had watching a movie in many years. I'd love to see sequels.

This is a revised/edited post of one I made on another board:

Though I still haven't seen JC, I definitely plan to at some point and will ignore all negative reviews. I'm sure I'll like the film since it looks great from all accounts - IMHO some/most of the bad reviews are probably from people who take movies too seriously Also, in general, I tend to like films that get bad reviews & dislike films that get good reviews: For example, I felt last year's new Conan film was brilliant, though it got slammed by the critics; conversely, even though Avatar got high accolades, I didn't like the film & felt it was just one long video game (IMHO it was also very derivative of Dances with Wolves & the original Star Trek episode "The Cage", but that's another thread).

Additional comments:

I'm not 100% sure JC would have done better @ the box office if it had been marketed differently; sure, maybe it would have helped if it had been called "John Carter of Mars" - IMHO, the "Of Mars" was important to let non-fans of the franchise know what the film was about (as has been previously mentioned in some places online, taking out "Mars" from the title may have been because films in the past 10-12 years with the words "Mars" haven't necessarily done well at the B.O., i.e. ("Ghosts of Mars", "Mission to Mars", etc.) - but, we'll never know if it would have made that much of a difference. Also it's possible if the film had been planned as a summer "blockbuster" it may have done better, but maybe not - if JC had been released in the Summer (instead of the Spring) it may have actually done even worse at the box office, i.e. more competition from other films. Again, we'll never know at this point.

As I mentioned before, I was surprised/dissapointed that there was no accompanying JC toyline; It's almost unheard of for a major sci-fi film like this to not have at least a small toyline, but IMHO toy companies were leery because of all the negative vibes/publicity surrounding the film long before the release (I guess it makes sense - a toy company is like any other business, and if they thought the film would do poorly at the box office they wouldn't want to make toys to promote the film). The character designs would have made great figures, especially the four-armed green aliens & other creatures.

I did finally re-read ERB's A Princess of Mars & also got the Marvel Omnibus reprinting the late '70's John Carter of Mars comic series, and both the novel and these comics were great. Looking forward to reading the rest of the ERB JC novels at some point.

Hey Phantom Train, I can tell from your post you're going to be blown away by the film.

As to the marketing, I have a friend who I just knew was the perfect fan for a Carter film. He hadn't read the books for whatever reason but I know his taste well. And I was stunned last week when he told me he had no interest, thought it looked stupid. I told him he had to go, and he now says it's one of the best films he's ever seen. So, the marketing folks at Disney defintitely dropped the ball. They've failed at targeting the film at the right audience. Also Friday's boxoffice numbers in the US indicated it was on track to have a worse weekend than it did. The numbers improved obviously due to word-of-mouth.

Incidentally, I too loved last year's Conan film. Terribly under-appreciated.

I am kind of mystified as to why there is no toy line for the movie either. I actually went back and checked coverage of this year's Toy Fair just to make sure I hadn't missed anything about one. I tell you know, I would probably have bought up just about anything from this film...there's so many opportunities for awesome toys...figures, vehicles, creatures, etc. Heck, there was a ton of stuff out there for Disney's Prince of Persia, even LEGO sets (which still boggles my mind) and that movie was no where near as good as John Carter! And really, Disney seems to try and turn an extra buck out of pretty much everything they make...so it is kind of weird.

I saw it yesterday. One of the best, funnest movies I've seen in a while. Grade A film.

. . . and so it begins

The Wall Street Journal today (Disney Pulls In Reins After a Flop) reports on how John Carter screwed other projects currently in the pipeline like (i) Maleficent, (ii) Oz The Great and Powerful, and especially (iii) The Lone Ranger (where shooting locations have been compressed to save $$$). Natural studio reaction to a flop film with run-away costs: cut the budgets on the films currently being made.

Sad to see an unsuccessful film impact others -- but it's a good lesson. Next time you see a film and something looks cheap or patched together or a casting choice looks cut-rate remember that line from Chinatown: "You may think you know what you're dealing with . . . but believe me you don't."

To me, the tragic effect of this will be the studio's choices of future films to make. Am I the only one who is tired of films based on old (and often times bad) TV shows? John Carter is an original film -- not a sequel, prequel, reboot. It's based on a 100-year-old pulp novel, and the filmmaker used inspiration from movies, as opposed to video games, in making it. And the feeling I had watching it reminded me of the movie experiences of my youth -- seeing Indy and Star Wars in theaters upon release.

In America this weekend, 21 Jump Street will do better than John Carter. I have nothing against Jump Street. But I've heard others complain as I have about the lack of originality in Hollywood. What's Hollywood learning from today's audiences? They're being told "we can't get enough Starsky & Hutch, Dukes of Hazzard, etc."

For the next several years, anytime a real filmmaker asks a studio to bankroll an original adventure film, the opportunity will be shot down and John Carter will be held up as the example that proves audiences have no interest in original adventure films.

Fortunately, John Carter will last. As time goes on more people will see it and recognize what an amazing achievement it is (it'll be too late for it to make money though). Some day I think people will find it remarkable that more people went to Jump Street than John Carter in Carter's 2nd week of release. It'll be one of those weird things in movie history like It's a Wonderful Life failing, and Hitchcock's Vertigo failing. People will wonder how it could have happened.

Not even overseas will save this trainwreck. . ..

From box office guru:

Fans of the mega-budgeted sci-fi epic John Carter were hoping that good word-of-mouth would lead to a solid sophomore hold, but that wasn't the case. Disney's pricey investment suffered a 55% tumble to an estimated $13.5M giving the effects-driven 3D pic $53.2M after ten days. The drop was in line with past spring action vehicles like 300 (54%), 10,000 B.C. (53%), and Clash of the Titans (57%). Should Carter play out in a similar way it could end its domestic run a bit above the $80M mark which would be disappointing given the mammoth production cost of over $250M plus the lavish marketing push. Overseas, holdover markets saw significant declines as the weekend brought in an estimated $40.7M from 54 territories with bows in three new markets including China. That represented an overall drop of 42% from last weekend however holdover markets averaged larger declines than that. The Mars pic has now collected $126.1M internationally and $179.3M across the planet we refer to as Earth. Reaching a final global total of $375M will be very hard which is unfortunate for the studio since roughly that amount was spent to produce and market the film.

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Back to the (animation) drawing board for Mr. Stanton.

" . . . the movie was pretty much what I expected it to be, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It was a bit mired in the "modern" kind of movie pacing and I would have wanted it to have more of a classical feel to it that I think of when I read the books, other than that little minor thing, the movie was good.

Carter had some interesting backstory bits, there wasn't a point where something took me out of it. Nic action etc.

It's not a phenomenal thing, but I hope Disney and other studios will start to look at these old school sci-fi books and get ideas, but if it fails it might leave that option in the dust. They really dropped the ball on the marketing here.

Seems like a shallow reason to like it visually, but coming from a concept art and design kinda guy, there where a ton of really awesome designs and all the creatures seemed to stay close to the source materials.

Give it a shot some time.

Oh, and the girl playing the princess sucked ass.

Not to be sexist or whatever, but when think of a princess of Mars, I kinda think of a pretty young woman trying to prove herself and not a sun-tanned old bitty . . . thanks." - My review to a friend . . .

So, I liked it