http://movies.yahoo.com/news/john-carter-pulls-only-30-6m-weekend-box-160324704.html

did not do so well.

does not surprise me because the massive advertising budget pretty much was a complete waste of every cent. why? i have seen advertisemants for this movie for over 5 months and all i know is that there are aliens and apparently some one named john carter, and i had to see several advertisemants to even see the alien part.

I think they tried to put the cart before the horse by promoting the movie simply as JOHN CARTER and nothing else. the plot is apparently some guy from the civil war gets teleported to mars to fight aliens, perhaps more people would have gone to see the movie if they even knew that much.

I cant really remember any other advertising campaign that has failed so miserably relative to the size of its budget.

Any one else think that too many movies are advertised with out presenting any actual information about the movie?

There's little actual information about the movie because people are probably expected to know the basic idea behind something as well-known as Burroghs's Barsoom books.

Just from watching trailers I already knew that.

Loved the ending. It was almost Death Note-y, totally something Light would do. Or Ledouche.

Before I saw the trailer I had it in my head it was John Connor from the Terminator trilogy. Was most disappointed to find out I'd been wrong for about 5 months...

I saw it yesterday and I can't say I'd really know how to market that, but I'm also not a professional whose in charge of multimillion dollar marketing campaigns. Most marketing tends to give away either too much or too little, rarely getting it just right IMO.

Well, since you said it's about a man from the civil war teleported to Mars (what the [censored]?!), I have to say I won't see it now.

Same.

i do not know what trailers were played in other countries but in america all that they contained was JOHN CARTER in big letters and a guy that looks like jake gylinhal from the prince of persia movie running from aliens.


thats what i initially thought when i first heard the name in the theatre trailer, it was a bit confusing.

I didn't need to have it spelled out for me but maybe you just aren't totally freaking amazing like me.

Really liked the ending as well, probably the highlight of the film for me. I think I would've preferred it as an animated film by Walt Disney Animation Studios though. The CGI was pretty, but I thought the dialogue, tone and many of the characters would've suited traditional animation really well.

When they opened the trailers saying, 'Before Star Wars…' I was like, "Ooook, nah not interested." Then, as they showed more and more trailers I was like, "Wow, Disney is really pushing this movie. It must be terrible."

OP, thanks for confirming what I knew all along.

I ruled out seeing it once I realised John Carter is the same guy that plays Tim Riggins in Friday Night Lights. He's not a very good actor.

Good to see many other thought it was related to Terminator
I can't say I knew anything about this apart from the name, I saw parts of it but thought that was something else since I kept imagining Terminator

I went to see this movie with low expectations and was pleasantly surprised. It's not the best movie in the world but it's certainly not the worst one either. Perhaps my opinion is influenced (or rather not) by the fact that I hadn't seen the trailer for it (I hardly ever watch TV so I hardly ever see trailers for movies) so I had no idea what to expect, was drawn to see the movie because my family had won tickets to see the pre-release screening of the movie where I live and I only learned that the main character would somehow go to Mars before I sat down to watch it.

Seeing how it is based on a book I can know (not guess, but know) from experience that it will be better and considering the difference between Eragon the movie and Eragon the book (which admittedly does not get a lot of praise but in comparison to the movie...) it might actually be pretty good. So I might just head to the library some day and check it out.

Wait, there are people nerdy enough to have stars next to there name on these forums, but not nerdy enough to just know what John Carter of Mars is about?

weird.

I first read the books back in the '60s- loved them. I reread them in the '80s- still loved them. I currently have them on my PDA- like them.

I'd like to hear from someone who has both read the books and seen the movie. Do they follow the story as written, or run off into left field? As a long time Burroughs fan, do I ignore this, or plan on buying the DVD?

My stars are NOT directly related to my nerdiness.

Are they that well known? I'd never heard of them mentioned anywhere except when I ran into it on wikipedia. I've read A Princess of Mars but I thought the film was still in development. Literally all I've seen of it is a banner ad on the internet.

Never heard of whatever that is. Nor this movie until now... I also don't have TV though.

Before this movie, I never knew about John Carter. Or Connor. What's his name again?

Relatively unknown B-grade TV actor and a poor advertising campaign. Its no wonder its floundering (despite a huge budget).

http://www.tarzan.org/pics/juskomars.jpg

Obviously not THAT well known, I LOVE to read books, am always looking for new reading material, and have several friends who love to read as well, and not one of us had ever heard of John Carter before. It wasn't until I read a bit about it on another forum that I learned it was based on a book series.

...

Here's the problem: Disney doing Edgar Rice Burroughs

Look at Tarzan.