"John Carter of Mars" Moving Ahead!

[Peak]

The "doom and gloom" reminds me when Avatar was coming out. First the "The trailers are s#¤t", then the "Cameron has lost it", "Pocahontas did it", "Dances with Wolfes did it" (and so on) and finally when it opened modestly "I knew it".

And then it steamrolled ahead.

I don't expect John Carter to have anything the legs of Avatar, far from it, but it does highlight the need from certain quarters to wish "unsuccess" on successful people.

I haven't seen the movie yet. Will soon, though.

 

[Professor Zoom]

The "doom and gloom" reminds me when Avatar was coming out. First the "The trailers are s#¤t", then the "Cameron has lost it", "Pocahontas did it", "Dances with Wolfes did it" (and so on) and finally when it opened modestly "I knew it".

Avatar opened with 77 million dollars in the US and was the #1 movie. Boxofficemojo.

Hardly modest. Especially for a December movie.

In fact here:

On Friday, Avatar wrangled a stellar estimated $27 million on approximately 7,000 screens at 3,452 sites (including $3.5 million from its midnight start). The picture's 3D presentations at 2,038 sites accounted for 58 percent of the gross.

It earned on a FRIDAY almost what Carter did in a weekend.

 

[Harvey]

And as for Mark Strong, please, can someone get this guy a new agent? If I see him in one more movie as a bad guy I'm gonna scream

He has a nice role in the recent Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy that defies his usual casting, although the movie wasn't as good as I had hoped. He sure plays a lot of silly, two-dimensional villains in blockbusters (or attempted blockbusters), though. He couldn't even stay a good guy for the entirety of Green Lantern!

 

[Hyperspace05]

The "doom and gloom" reminds me when Avatar was coming out. First the "The trailers are s#¤t", then the "Cameron has lost it", "Pocahontas did it", "Dances with Wolfes did it" (and so on) and finally when it opened modestly "I knew it".

Avatar opened with 77 million dollars in the US and was the #1 movie. Boxofficemojo.

Hardly modest. Especially for a December movie.

In fact here:

On Friday, Avatar wrangled a stellar estimated $27 million on approximately 7,000 screens at 3,452 sites (including $3.5 million from its midnight start). The picture's 3D presentations at 2,038 sites accounted for 58 percent of the gross.

It earned on a FRIDAY almost what Carter did in a weekend.

Yes, but I think his point was that (some) people still viewed $70m as a disappointment, and that it would be hard for it to make back its budget. Avatar's legs were not on full display until the weekend after (and after that).

 

[Professor Zoom]

The "doom and gloom" reminds me when Avatar was coming out. First the "The trailers are s#¤t", then the "Cameron has lost it", "Pocahontas did it", "Dances with Wolfes did it" (and so on) and finally when it opened modestly "I knew it".

Avatar opened with 77 million dollars in the US and was the #1 movie. Boxofficemojo.

Hardly modest. Especially for a December movie.

In fact here:

On Friday, Avatar wrangled a stellar estimated $27 million on approximately 7,000 screens at 3,452 sites (including $3.5 million from its midnight start). The picture's 3D presentations at 2,038 sites accounted for 58 percent of the gross.

It earned on a FRIDAY almost what Carter did in a weekend.

Yes, but I think his point was that (some) people still viewed $70m as a disappointment, and that it would be hard for it to make back its budget. Avatar's legs were not on full display until the weekend after (and after that).

I guess I just don't remember the disappointment of the opening number... Certainly not a comparative number of people as with Carter.

 

[stj]

The insistence of professional reviewers on reviewing the budget, the marketing and the box office shows pretty clearly how fraudulent the conventional wisdom of the industry really is. The large majority of reviewers are simply parts of the advertising system.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Different kinds of movies tend to distribute differently over the weekend days.

That's true, and John Carter had a much better Saturday increase than is the norm for a big live action SFF movie. You're right, though, that the second weekend hold will be a more important factor in how strong its legs will be.

 

[Samurai8472]

Today's roundup of analysts pointing out why it didn't work


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/john-carter-disney-taylor-kitsch-rich-ross-300266

What went wrong with 'John Carter'?

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/awards-campaign/posts/what-went-wrong-with-john-carter


Facebook campaign for a sequel

http://www.slashfilm.com/john-carter-fans-demand-sequel-launch-facebook-campaign/

 

[The Wormhole]

Something I noticed, this movie seemed marketed towards children. Or at least that's the impression I got. When I saw the movie, the theatre was filled with children. Young children at that (around 5 or so). I think I was the only adult there who wasn't a parent/guardian. It made things rather uncomfortable.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

Something I noticed, this movie seemed marketed towards children. Or at least that's the impression I got. When I saw the movie, the theatre was filled with children. Young children at that (around 5 or so). I think I was the only adult there who wasn't a parent/guardian. It made things rather uncomfortable.

That theatre must have been an outlier. From Box Office Guru:

In North America, John Carter played mostly to adult men. Studio research showed that 63% was male and 59% was over 25.

 

[The Wormhole]

Weird. If it weren't for the fact that John Carter was playing at the special "Extra Theatre" I would have been double checking to make sure I wasn't in the wrong one.

The Extra Theatre, for those wondering is a special theatre with a huge screen, vibration-causing sounds, some stupid light show on the walls which "immerses" you in the film but is in fact distracting. Seating is assigned when you purchase your ticket, and you get to sit in a leather recliner. On a regular day, a ticket would cost you $20.00, but I was there on cheap day, so I only paid $10.00. And before you ask, the particular cineplex was only showing John Carter in the Extra Theatre.

Under normal crcumstances, I go to another cineplex to avoid paying Extra, but since there's currently a bus strike in my city, I have to settle for the one people are willing to drive me to.

 

[Forbin]

Just read the first book in less than a week of lunchtimes.
LOTS of fun.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

If people like reading post-mortems, here's Deadline's, they keep adding to it and the comments section is an entertaining squabble.

But it seems like a pretty clear-cut case of Death by Bad Marketing (which tends to get blamed for a lot that it's not guilty of, but in this case, the blame is totally warranted.)

Sounds like casting Taylor Kitsch didn't help much either.

But once again, the two home-grown Disney films -- Lone Ranger and Oz -- are expensive $200 million-plus bets.

I'm calling it now, The Lone Ranger will be a hit. This is the easiest movie in the world to market - it's POTC, reborn as a Western. It doesn't have to be good in order to be a hit. None of the POTC movies were good, so that part doesn't matter. I have no idea how they could possibly fuck it up. Maybe if they try their best to keep it a secret that Depp is in the movie.

 

[Yevetha]

Sounds like casting Taylor Kitsch didn't help much either.

I dont know. Avatar was succesfull without major stars.

Who needs stars anyway?

 

[TheSeeker]

Saw it last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Having now paid to see this movie, I can say that it probably won't be very accessible to anyone who isn't familiar with the original stories. The Tigger-like boundin' of the titular character was so very silly that the film's release under the Disney banner is appropriate. The motivation of the Therns was pretty much opaque other than they like running planets slowly to ruin by engineering continuous conflict. As bad guys, they're pretty unconvincing and offer an unsubtle allegory of environmental rapine by faceless global corporations. As for prospect of sequels, the story as it stands is pretty much self contained, and I can't see that they would be anything much more than rinse and repeat.

 

[Yevetha]

As bad guys, they're pretty unconvincing and offer an unsubtle allegory of environmental rapine by faceless global corporations.

Was this allegory from the original books?

 

[Peak]

The "doom and gloom" reminds me when Avatar was coming out. First the "The trailers are s#¤t", then the "Cameron has lost it", "Pocahontas did it", "Dances with Wolfes did it" (and so on) and finally when it opened modestly "I knew it".

Avatar opened with 77 million dollars in the US and was the #1 movie. Boxofficemojo.

Hardly modest. Especially for a December movie.

In fact here:

On Friday, Avatar wrangled a stellar estimated $27 million on approximately 7,000 screens at 3,452 sites (including $3.5 million from its midnight start). The picture's 3D presentations at 2,038 sites accounted for 58 percent of the gross.

It earned on a FRIDAY almost what Carter did in a weekend.

Yes, but I think his point was that (some) people still viewed $70m as a disappointment, and that it would be hard for it to make back its budget. Avatar's legs were not on full display until the weekend after (and after that).

Yeah, this. It was a "hyped" movie and a lot of people saw the first weekend as a big disappoitmen (or glee that Cameron finally lost it). Maybe not here, but I do tend to lurk in boxoffice-threads on different forums (hate that Boxofficemojos forum is gone... )..

 

[Hyperspace05]

Yes, but I think his point was that (some) people still viewed $70m as a disappointment, and that it would be hard for it to make back its budget. Avatar's legs were not on full display until the weekend after (and after that).

Yeah, this. It was a "hyped" movie and a lot of people saw the first weekend as a big disappoitmen (or glee that Cameron finally lost it). Maybe not here, but I do tend to lurk in boxoffice-threads on different forums (hate that Boxofficemojos forum is gone... )..

Speaking of that, is there another forum where boxoffice mojo forum posters have gone to? I also miss that forum.

 

[Captain Craig]

Yes, but I think his point was that (some) people still viewed $70m as a disappointment, and that it would be hard for it to make back its budget. Avatar's legs were not on full display until the weekend after (and after that).

Yeah, this. It was a "hyped" movie and a lot of people saw the first weekend as a big disappoitmen (or glee that Cameron finally lost it). Maybe not here, but I do tend to lurk in boxoffice-threads on different forums (hate that Boxofficemojos forum is gone... )..

Speaking of that, is there another forum where boxoffice mojo forum posters have gone to? I also miss that forum.

Glad you asked. Many of us moved over to BoxOfficeTheory.com, so if you recall certain big posters name you'll find most are here now.