City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

John Carter: Well Worth Seeing

Agonus

By Agonus,
Posted on: 2012-03-10 23:12 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jet_Boy View Post
(as a side note, is anyone else here irritated that many of the reviewers talk about the lack of originality of the story and concept, with an obvious ignorance that The Barsoom novels predate most of their analogs by the better part of a century?)
Many reviewers won't lift a finger to do the homework on a movie, so anything that's not in the press packet will likely be missed. (And movie reviewers wonder why their vocation isn't held in very high regard?)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr_Darkspeed View Post
Just saw it, and thought it was pretty darn nifty. It was very pretty, had some good humour, fun fights and all in all good movie.
That seems to be the consensus from what the marketing folks refer to as "the target demographic", yet this doesn't seem to have translated into a word-of-mouth boost at the box office. A 55% drop from opening weekend is bad news, even if the overseas receipts are holding steady.

 

Posted

I finally got to see John Carter on Saturday. I read the books as a kid, and then re-read them a few years ago. While there were certainly changes from the books, I was not disappointed by the film at all. I thought is was a fun action-adventure film taking most of the good stuff from the book and solidly in the spirit of the books.

I'm very disappointed that it has not done better at the box office. I'm certainly doing my best to give it good word-of-mouth.

I want a Woola!

(Hmm, just thought that we should get a Barsoom Mastermind set . . . )

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jet_Boy View Post
(as a side note, is anyone else here irritated that many of the reviewers talk about the lack of originality of the story and concept, with an obvious ignorance that The Barsoom novels predate most of their analogs by the better part of a century?)
This sums up my feelings on the matter.

Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster


"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agonus View Post
Rumor has it that Richard Cook was largely responsible for how John Carter was made, but he left the company before the movie was released. So Disney still released the movie to avoid an utter disaster, but they half***ed the marketing because A) those still at Disney did not like what Cook allowed for Carter, B) Avengers is right around the corner, and they're going to focus the marketing on that anyway or C) a little of both.
That seems unlikely, since as bad as the marketing seems to have been for the movie they spent a gigaton on it. No one spends a hundred million on deliberately half-whacked marketing. It seems that this is not a case of the suits deliberately tanking the movie, but the suits actually doing their best and totally messing it up.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Agonus View Post
Rumor has it that Richard Cook was largely responsible for how John Carter was made, but he left the company before the movie was released. So Disney still released the movie to avoid an utter disaster, but they half***ed the marketing because A) those still at Disney did not like what Cook allowed for Carter, B) Avengers is right around the corner, and they're going to focus the marketing on that anyway or C) a little of both.
There's plenty of blame to go around for everyone besides Richard Cook: See the previously linked The Inside Story of How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer. Incidentally, Disney can expect to lose $120M this quarter alone thanks to this fiasco.

Anyway, here's a mashup of the box office to illustrate what went wrong: