John Carter Positioned To Be Biggest Flop Of All Time?

[sir clinksalot]

Here are some tweets from people who have seen the movie, OVERWHELMINGLY positive. Good on Disney for letting them tweet about it. Sad that Disney has absolutely no confidence in this film.

John Carter Reviews: Disney lifts embargo, accolades roll in on Twitter from Arizona Press Screenings | thejohncarterfiles.com

[Ride Warrior]

Oh don't get me wrong... I cannot wait to see this film. But it's mostly because of Andrew Stanton and nothing else. The Disney Marketing team has done nothing to gather interest from me nor most anyone else.
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again, i disagree. The film's been advertised plenty.

I constantly see TV spots, hear radio spots, etc. The coverage is there... but to the passer by , it just looks like another Thor, another random action flick, big booms, etc.

They have failed to make it stand out or make it desirable.

The TV spots focus on his super jumping.. which without any story.. just looks freaking stupid and makes you go 'wtf' and you don't know if it this is realistic, comic book, or what.

I'm glad that you agree that John Carter has plenty of marketing coverage. I do not concur with your opinion as to the effect of the films commercials and publicity.

Here are some tweets from people who have seen the movie, OVERWHELMINGLY positive. Good on Disney for letting them tweet about it. Sad that Disney has absolutely no confidence in this film.

John Carter Reviews: Disney lifts embargo, accolades roll in on Twitter from Arizona Press Screenings | thejohncarterfiles.com

If the film is as successful as I believe it will be, this would call into question the validity of those that tweet as an accurate form of movie popularity prediction. Most of the tweeters in this case could be primarily made up of those down on Disney. As far as fan-made trailers, I've never found any of them to be anywhere neer as professionally commercial or creative as authentic industry teasers and trailers.

[Coheteboy]

again, i disagree. The film's been advertised plenty.

Advertised plenty is one thing. I said Disney has failed to generate "interest". Like Flynnibus said, focusing on the super jumping looks ridiculous without context. That should have been saved for seeing the movie. What they should have done was focus on who was making it and how incredible it is that we're even seeing this movie since it was so difficult to get it off the ground.

[Ride Warrior]

Advertised plenty is one thing. I said Disney has failed to generate "interest". Like Flynnibus said, focusing on the super jumping looks ridiculous without context. That should have been saved for seeing the movie. What they should have done was focus on who was making it and how incredible it is that we're even seeing this movie since it was so difficult to get it off the ground.

True. Disney's emphasizing more-so in it's marketing the artists behind the making of John Carter would have added a greater appeal to the classic novel-based films more discerning criticsl. To this end, I agree that the film would have a greater box office potential. That said, I believe that it has a tremendous chance of staying in the dance and becoming a grand slam hit.

[ALIASd]

Double-edged marketing sword:

Use "From the 2-time Oscar winning director of 'Finding Nemo' and 'Wall-e'" for a non-Pixar/non-animated film and further confuse a potential audience (And/or risk ticking off parents with 6-year olds and younger).

or don't. Let the film speak for itself.

BTW - how does ANYONE in today's society not have exposure to the marketing of a major motion picture release. Are some states secretly banning the internet, television or print ads?!

Hey, the last time we had so much traffic with bad title/bad trailers/bad marketing jabs was with 'Tangled'. That film now sits behind 'The Lion King' with over $600 million in box office take.

[Not My Real Name]

I am very disappointed in the marketing for this film. I'm a long tie fan of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom books and when I saw that Andrew Stanton was going to be directing a live-action version of the story I could not have been more excited. Then Disney dropped "of Mars" from the title. Why? To distance themselves from Mars Needs Moms? No one remembers that film anyway. By cutting that from the title they've effectively killed the heart of the story. Speaking of story, there is none of it in the trailers. There's just a lot of rapid cuts and explosions. While there is a fair amount of action in the books, there is more to it than that. There's love, there's politics, there's pathos. There is none of that in the trailers. I will see this film because I've been waiting for it for years, but I won't be surprised if it flops. I will, however, be very sad. If this movie does fail, it's purely because of the marketing.

I could've written this and I wish I had! I would also like to mention that it was Marvel's series in the '80s that made me go and read the books. My God, Burroughs was one long-winded kind of writer.

[Ride Warrior]

Double-edged marketing sword:

Use "From the 2-time Oscar winning director of 'Finding Nemo' and 'Wall-e'" for a non-Pixar/non-animated film and further confuse a potential audience (And/or risk ticking off parents with 6-year olds and younger).

or don't. Let the film speak for itself.

BTW - how does ANYONE in today's society not have exposure to the marketing of a major motion picture release. Are some states secretly banning the internet, television or print ads?!

Hey, the last time we had so much traffic with bad title/bad trailers/bad marketing jabs was with 'Tangled'. That film now sits behind 'The Lion King' with over $600 million in box office take.

Well put. Connecting an essentially live-action film with cartoon movies would be pandering to an essentially kiddy audience, which would indeed be compound confusion among potential audiences.

One never seems to hear any jab retractions once a ropped apart film proves to be a top box office performer. Instead, it's off to jabbing apart another flick. Oh well, it doesn't phase my viewing and enjoying awesome films one little bit.

---------- Post added 02-22-2012 at 02:44 PM ----------

I could've written this and I wish I had! I would also like to mention that it was Marvel's series in the '80s that made me go and read the books. My God, Burroughs was one long-winded kind of writer.

Regardless of how a person regards the marketing of different films, reading the books many of them are based on makes the work all the more rewarding and immersivly enjoying.

[Barbossa]

With Disney stripping "of Mars" from the title, I still think the movie is about this guy:

[BassBone]

With Disney stripping "of Mars" from the title, I still think the movie is about this guy:

Who is that?

[Coheteboy]

"John Carter" if you had Arnold Schwarzenegger say it.... almost sounds like "john Connor".

Arnold: "CAHDAAAAH! JOHHHHHN CAHDAAAAAH!

Double-edged marketing sword:

Use "From the 2-time Oscar winning director of 'Finding Nemo' and 'Wall-e'" for a non-Pixar/non-animated film and further confuse a potential audience (And/or risk ticking off parents with 6-year olds and younger).

or don't. Let the film speak for itself.

BTW - how does ANYONE in today's society not have exposure to the marketing of a major motion picture release. Are some states secretly banning the internet, television or print ads?!

Hey, the last time we had so much traffic with bad title/bad trailers/bad marketing jabs was with 'Tangled'. That film now sits behind 'The Lion King' with over $600 million in box office take.

TRUE, but instead of saying "Wall-E or Finding Nemo" maybe they can say "FROM ACADEMY AWARD WINNER ANDREW STANTON" and let it be up to the audiences to look him up?

[ALIASd]

I like that but typically the Academy Award winner card in film advertising is reserved for prestige Oscar bait films. 15-25 male target demo sci- fi films get simpler quick impact visuals. We're lucky at very least it doesn't say "A Film NOT made by McG".

[milojthatch]

As a fan of both Edgar Rice Burroughs and Andrew Stanton, I want to say I'm excited about this. But I'm not. I agree with many things already said, that they dropped the "of Mars" part from the title, that they are not using Stanton's Pixar films as part of the ad campaign, and that the ad campaign is just weak. Honestly, the only film I'm excited about this year is Avengers, and the thing about that is with or without Disney, it was coming anyway. I feel like Disney just moved in at the last minute and claimed someone else's work as their own with that film. I'm a big Disney fan from way back, but this modern version of the company is really starting to loose it. Their so busy trying to re-brand the company name that it is starting to make the Disney name a joke. I don't blame Dick Cook by the way. In fact, I'm starting to miss him.

[Ride Warrior]

With Disney stripping "of Mars" from the title, I still think the movie is about this guy:

Hee'll be bahk!

[sir clinksalot]

As a fan of both Edgar Rice Burroughs and Andrew Stanton, I want to say I'm excited about this. But I'm not. I agree with many things already said, that they dropped the "of Mars" part from the title, that they are not using Stanton's Pixar films as part of the ad campaign, and that the ad campaign is just weak. Honestly, the only film I'm excited about this year is Avengers, and the thing about that is with or without Disney, it was coming anyway. I feel like Disney just moved in at the last minute and claimed someone else's work as their own with that film. I'm a big Disney fan from way back, but this modern version of the company is really starting to loose it. Their so busy trying to re-brand the company name that it is starting to make the Disney name a joke. I don't blame Dick Cook by the way. In fact, I'm starting to miss him.

The trailer that used Andrew Stanton's Pixar credits was a "fan made" trailer.

And using somebody's past works to promote a current movie is absolutely nothing new.

[Kohrsfilms]

I really want to see this movie!

Mainly because I think it's interesting that this particular book series hasn't really ever been adapted into a live action film before. The books have been around for 100 years and this is the first time it's being made into a big Hollywood movie.

I'm also a big fan of many of the sci-fi movies that have borrowed from John Carter, which I can understand being a turn off for people. Especially when all they show in the advertising is the arena scene that looks literally identical to Star Wars Attack of the Clones.

I really think that marketing shot this movie in the foot. I'm hoping that the buzz is true and that the movie is still really good. I guess we'll find out on March 9th.