Posted on 03/11/2012 1:32:54 PM PDT by jimbo123
-snip-
“John Carter,” a big-budget science fiction epic from Walt Disney Studios that opened Friday and flopped over the weekend. Disney spent lavishly (some say foolishly) on the movie in large part to keep one of its most important creative talents happy: Andrew Stanton, the Pixar-based director of “Finding Nemo” and “Wall-E.”
“John Carter,” which cost an estimated $350 million to make and market, and was directed by Mr. Stanton, took in about $30.6 million at the North American box office, according to Rentrak, which compiles box-office data. That result is so poor, even when factoring in about $71 million in overseas ticket sales, that analysts estimate that Disney will be forced to take a quarterly write-down of $100 million to $165 million.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My boys and I like the SciFi movies. They are soo bad they are good.
Megan Ward? I don’t she ever did porn.
Serenity was a terrific movie, and was another of those heartbreaking examples of how the studios can completely blow the promotional strategy.
Like naming this movie simply “John Carter”, which means nothing to those not familiar with the books, the promotions and TV ads for Serenity told absolutely nothing about what the movie was about. The Browncoats turned out to see it of course, but people unfamiliar with the Firefly TV series were given no reason to go see it.
Saw it with the kids and liked it. It actually didn’t portray all humans as evil, and actually heroic! The native 4 arm guys were pretty cruel, shocking to say the least coming from Hollywood these days!
John Carter ten minute clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HaE5Zs8dAY
Wow. We didn’t go see it because of the weak reviews, but this ten minutes looks really cool.
You know, maybe I will go see it after all.
The reasoning was that the last 3-5 movies with "Mars" in the title flopped like fish out of water.
For the record I jsut got back from seeing John Carter, and enjoyed it. I am 1/3 of the way through the first book so i can't say how well they stuck to the original by ERB.
In the foreword, which is part of the fiction, Burroughs describes him as a “tall, dark, athletic man” with black hair. When he sees him for the first time since he had gone off to war he says, “I was much surprised to note he had not aged apparently a moment.”
So you guys are all wet. I felt the casting was right on. The movie drew a lot from the book, and followed it in outline. The biggest deviation they made was the Thune business, but they made this work pretty well.
Overall the movie was pretty good. Everything looked good, and the opening airship scene drew me into it. There were a few draggy parts, but the plot moved well and had some twists. Its biggest problem is that the whole conception is so familiar to the public in so many other treatments, notably Star Wars, of course. I think this greatly reduces its pull and the action and dialogue are in the same familiar mold. I guess they weren’t going to commit $250 million to some kind of retro treatment.
These stories were actually written in 1911 and 1912, more than 100 years ago.
“John Carter was the lead character in the first novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, set on a fictionalized version of Mars known as Barsoom. Written between July and September 28, 1911, the novel was serialized as Under the Moons of Mars in the pulp magazine The All-Story from February to July 1912. It later appeared as a complete novel only after the success of Burroughs’ Tarzan series. For its October 1917 hardcover publication by A.C. McClurg & Company, the novel was retitled A Princess of Mars.”
Mars Attacks! was great, though.
That’s what is so nice about anonymous forums...no one really needs credibility.
Looks pretty compelling to me as well.
Just saw it at our Movies10 theatre.Where every single movie always cost just4.00 and popcorn,hotdogs,and soda costs only 1.00.Very good movie,and the theatre was standing room only,showing on 2 screens,,both full.Im a fan of ERB,and thought they did an excellent job.Fantastic story,showing heroism,and the values this country used to support.Shame on most of you for badmouthing it without seeing it.
Please tell me you forgot the /sarc tag.
She’s 43 (I guess 40-41 in that movie photo).
Yes it was great, when the Martians fired on Congress, everybody in the theater cheered.
Yeah. She was only 16,,,, but very,,,,errrrr, very talented!
“Shame on most of you for badmouthing it without seeing it.”
I am with you there. Since when did the NY-Slimes become a trusted source. geez
We saw it last night and had a full theater. It was a great movie probably go see it again.
-——John Carter...who’s that and what’s the movie about?-——
Exactly right. I knew nothing about it, but caught the commercial today.
I thought:
“John Carter”
Lots of special effects.
What the?
Oh well, who cares.
And that would have been my last impression if I hadn’t read this.
Critics and the media are chewing on this movie, but most people that actually SAW it seem to like it...it DID make $100 million world-wide in three days...disappointing, perhaps, but bomb? Not so sure. Word of mouth may give this movie some legs...
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