Is Disney’s ‘John Carter’ Going To Be a Massive Box Office Bust?
Could Disney have the biggest box office flop of all-time on their hand? It’s almost certainly too early to tell but as John Carter came today on tracking, gasps of horror could probably have been heard over at Walt Disney Studios. Deadline reports that John Carter, Andrew Stanton’s $250 million adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs novel A Princess of Mars, is tracking very poorly so far with only 53% awareness, 27% definitely interested, and a dismal 3% first choice.
In comparison, The Vow which opened to a whopping $41.3 million this past weekend enjoyed very strong tracking from the start. With two weeks before release, the film was already boasting 68 percent awareness among women over 25, a colossal 61 percent definite interest, and was the first choice of more than a fifth of them. While John Carter is still three weeks away from hitting theaters (March 9), one can see the daunting task at hand for Disney’s marketing team, which has the unenviable task of pushing a movie with a mediocre full trailer and virtually no star power (Taylor Kitsch anyone?).
A rival senior studio executive told Nikki Finke “It just came out. Women of all ages have flat out rejected the film. The tracking for John Carter is shocking for a film that cost over $250 million. This could be the biggest writeoff of all time.” This is ironic given that Stanton insisted on changing the title of the movie from “A Princess of Mars” to “John Carter of Mars” and then “John Carter”. Back in November, the writer-director said “I changed Princess Of Mars… because not a single boy would go. And then the other truth is, no girl would go to see John Carter Of Mars. So I said, ‘I don’t won’t to do anything out of fear, I hate doing things out of fear, but I can’t ignore that truth.’”
Well it seems like no one is going to see the movie now. Finke ventures a box office tally as low as $150 million which would put John Carter very much in play for biggest box office bust of all-time. Disney are expected to address the issue with a big promotional push but with Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games releasing two weeks later, they could well be throwing more money after bad money.
Will you see John Carter? If not, why?
22 Comments
I just hope youre wrong.
For my fantasy team, dammit.
Ah well. I’ll always have Battleship!!
Ahah well it doesn’t really affect you. It will still make a decent amount of money overall, just not nearly enough for Disney to breakeven.
Mhmmmphh…
I’m not going to see it and I read about the slate of releases on IndieWire’s Playlist and I can’t believe the money that is being spent on these films. It’s ridiculous. My dad saw the Super Bowl spot for “Battleship” and he didn’t like it. I then told him that they spent more than $200 million on that film. He’s like “on this…?”
I don’t want to root against Andrew Stanton since he made one of my all-time favorite films in “WALL-E” but I can’t for him on this project either.
Yea it’s ridiculous the amount of money being spent on this and Battleship. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up being the two biggest money losers for the year.
I wonder if it’s not the movie itself, or the preferences of the audience, but the source material itself that makes promoting “John Carter” such a daunting endeavor. I mean, when was the last successful novie based on pulp SF successful? The last Conan perhaps? Not likely. Is there an audience member out there that evven knows this is based on a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs? Do they even know that Burroughs wrote all the Tarzan novels. Not likely.
It’s a shame thuogh, as this has been on my radar for two years. Having grown up reading the John Carter novels, I think it would really be a shame if this one busts.
Well Disney certainly is assuming that a lot of people have read the novel because they have basically decided that they won’t lay out what the premise is about in the trailers. That’s a major mistake in my view and probably why the movie is going under the radar.
I’ll watch it. I’ve been tracking it since the first trailer many months ago. I have a weak spot for over-the-top sci-fi adventures. Usually I end up dissapointed but that never keeps me from going back.
Yea I’m somewhat intrigued by the movie and certainly, it could be good or not but that’s a moot point. This could still be a major box office bomb.
I have zero interest in seeing this film and if/when it tanks at the box office, I won’t be surprise one bit. From the trailers and TV spots, there’s nothing new that we haven’t seen before, big CGI battle sequences and alien creatures? As Homer Simpson would say, boring!
Exactly. The marketing is putting forward the least attractive feature of the film, big CGI battles and alien monsters can be seen half of the movies being made these days.
It’s Disney, you can never count out Disney. This film may do better than expected.
Disney is usually a marketing juggernaut but so far I don’t feel they have done a very good job advertising this movie. The trailer don’t tell anything about the premise and it’s just disappointing overall that it’s been so unimaginative.
Great idea to make the title so generic that no one cares about it! Who greenlighted this monster? How could this add up to $250 million. Some people need to be fired.
Exactly, unless you’ve read the book, you have absolutely no idea what the movie is about and the trailers do an absolutely terrible job of laying out the story as well.
Yes, it is going to BOMB!!
From the very first images and trailer I have hated the whole story / concept. Like Avatar and Star wars love child but FUGLY!!
But as we all know Scott’s Law says if I hate the trailer it will be a good film…. God I hope the rule fails on this one
What??!? $200 mil for THIS? Unbelievable! Ahah, Scott’s remark makes me laugh but yeah I’m not enticed by the trailer at all. Maybe a rental at best, we’ll see.
This would also seem like a major summer tentpole film as well. I’m not sure what the train of thought is regarding a March release date. For a budget that large, it seems Christmas time or summer time would be a better fit for it.
Hi, Castor and company:
I went through most of Edgar Rice Burrough’s novels in the 70s. Mostly due to Frank Frazetta’s awesome artwork on countless paper back covers.
The first ‘Conan’ film came closest to Burrough’s imagination and spirit of adventure and was still found lacking. I don’t hold out a lot of hope for Disney’s latest venture.
Only reason I read the article is because I’d never heard of it :S
http://collider.com/john-carter-fan-trailer/147054/ Kinda sad when fans make better trailers than the actual studio
It looks good to me. Much better than most of the films that have been coming out lately. I haven’t even seen Avatar or whatever it’s called. This won’t flop. Who wrote this article?
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