John Carter : Othor Games

» Mon May 14, 2012 9:16 am

BTW, how is 30.6 million bucks and second only to the Lorax an utter failure?

It cost a huge amount to make, as special-effects-fests tend to do. $30mil domestic is pretty bad. If it weren't for the modern trend where international adds on a ton of $, it'd be a vast failure.

» Mon May 14, 2012 12:02 pm

The greatest hero of the Red Martians, respected warrior amongst the Green Martians, and immortal confederate soldier.

Wait! He's a Confederate Soldier and he's immortal?

From the movie trailer I thought he was a scientist working a dig site in pre-World War 1 Egypt. I'm so confused and the movie looks ans sound like it's terrible. And from the picture posted on page one the books don't look to be much better.

» Mon May 14, 2012 11:32 am

Wait! He's a Confederate Soldier and he's immortal?

That was the case in the novels, yes...

» Mon May 14, 2012 10:10 am

Yea, whenever I saw a commercial for this movie I thought two things:

Is this movie a parody?
Am I supposed to know who John Carter is?

Of course, I also thought it looked ridiculous, and mostly comfirmed on that feeling when I saw that Disney was involved.

» Mon May 14, 2012 8:28 am

Wow. I am amazed so many have not heard of this series. I have read every book in the series as a teenageer, and even had the SPI board game. Keeping in mind the times in which it was written, the books were simplly a straight out fun adventure and, most important to me, just basic good storytelling. I am eager to see this movie.
BTW, how is 30.6 million bucks and second only to the Lorax an utter failure?

I had never heard of the books until me dad told me about them after I went to see the movie....which I actually thoroughly enjoyed :wink:

Then again, I am a svcker for any kind of alien type movies....Cameron's Avatar, Star Wars, Star Trek, Star Gate....you name it

» Mon May 14, 2012 1:02 pm

I'm struggling to understand how this B movie cost them so much, and they spent like a fiver on advertising.

actually they advertised the movie a ridiculous amount. thats why i made this thread, pointing out that blowing a huge cash wad in advertising that essentially is only advertising the name of the movie and some random images of aliens. Virtually no one knew what the movie was about despite having been constantly bombarded with advertisments.

Get this, the film had a $250 million budget. It made $30 M on the opening weekend. That + the money made internationally will, if they're lucky, get them maybe $50 M in debt. They're screwed.

they still have dvd and blu-ray sales to look forward to, and opening week ends don't account for the majority of the gross of films in theatres in general, although it does predict how people recieved the film.

» Mon May 14, 2012 3:20 pm

Yup, it's called the modern film industry dude. Other masterpieces of this process include, but are not limited to; Thor, anything with "Transformers" in the title, any reworking of superhero comics, anything starring Adam Sandler or Ben Stiller, and last (but deifently not least in terms of sheer, stupidity, lack of imagination and a complete dependance upon special effects and scantily-clad women to sell it); Fast Five.

That's nothing. Have you heard of...

Rob Schneider?

» Mon May 14, 2012 11:58 am

Thanks in large part to Disney

i am 21 and i remember before tarzan being a well known thing before disney made a tarzan movie. there were several movies in the 40-60's that were about tarzan.

» Mon May 14, 2012 6:47 pm

I think some movie trailers tell too much info on the story of the movie. Some that I've seen on the television make me not want to see the movie, because I just saw that movie summed up in 15 seconds.

» Mon May 14, 2012 11:26 am

That was the case in the novels, yes...

I am assuming that this is no longer the case in the film? Because the trailers don't male it seem that way. In either case, this will be a "wait for it to aire on tv" movies for me.

» Mon May 14, 2012 10:19 am

I'm gonna get it from DVD, i'm just not the cinema type person.

» Mon May 14, 2012 7:42 am

actually they advertised the movie a ridiculous amount. thats why i made this thread, pointing out that blowing a huge cash wad in advertising that essentially is only advertising the name of the movie and some random images of aliens.

Well they didn't reach me, a fan of the books making me its core demographic, all I saw was one banner ad. I thought it still had another year in development.

I'll probably get it on DVD eventually. Who did they get to play Dejah Thoris? Since I've never heard of the guy who plays Carter...

» Mon May 14, 2012 12:16 pm

I'll probably get it on DVD eventually. Who did they get to play Dejah Thoris? Since I've never heard of the guy who plays Carter...

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1211488/ She was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Funnily enough, the guy who plays Carter was as well, he was Gambit.

I was going to go and see it, but reading this thread has put me off a bit. Is it terrible?

» Mon May 14, 2012 12:09 pm

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1211488/ She was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Funnily enough, the guy who plays Carter was as well, he was Gambit.

I was going to go and see it, but reading this thread has put me off a bit. Is it terrible?

you should not let this thread put you off. i did not start it because i hate the movie or think its bad, just they're advertising campaign. i have not seen the movie, i don't plan to see it in theatres but thats because i just don't go to them very often unless i am super excited to see the movie.

» Mon May 14, 2012 7:34 pm

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1211488/

Well she has the right look for it at least.

» Mon May 14, 2012 5:40 am

Cost of John Carter: $250 mil
Cost of John Carter Advertising: $100 mil
Total: $350mil

Opening Weekend takings USA $30.6 mil
Opening Weekend takings UK ￡2.1 mil
Worldwide first weekend approx $100 mil
For Disney to break even after cinemas take their cut, takings needed $600 mil :facepalm:

Avatar in comparison:
cost $300 mil
takings $2,7 billion

Source: The Times

Its a flop, I have to admit the adverts make it look terrible, its only a few seconds long, features a big gorilla thing and then just flashes John Carter in your face in huge letters, I thought it was some cheesy low budget junk aimed at little kiddies from the adverts.

» Mon May 14, 2012 3:10 pm

I guess I am yet another person who had no idea what or who John Carter is. I also couldn't tell you who wrote Tarzan. Come to think of it, the only thing I really know about Tarzan is the name and "Me Tarzan, You Jane". The advertisemants definitely didn't help. Sure every time I saw one I thought "Who is John Carter?" but the rest was just uninteresting clips of a standard action movie. So in a few minutes I had forgotten all about it and never bothered to look it up to see what it was.

» Mon May 14, 2012 3:29 pm

Ive read all the Barsoom novels, and have been waiting for years for someone to make a film of the books like they did lord of the rings, was hoping peter jackson would do it, then i see john carter last year and i read the article and automatically was disappointed when i read disney, and that pretty much decided it for me, its easy for people who dont know the books type dejah thoris into a search engine and look up the images. It will be another hollywood loose adaption of a novel.

» Mon May 14, 2012 3:34 pm

Just throw me on the pile for people who knew of Tarzan (pre-Disney) who didn't know of John Carter & who didn't get any thing useful from the few times I've seen the commercial

"A guy fighting a monster in the desert?! apparently his name might be John Carter."

was my thought.

» Mon May 14, 2012 2:05 pm

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.

ditto

also before now I've never heard of the movie or the book.

» Mon May 14, 2012 12:45 pm

I have no idea what the movie is about by just seeing the 10 secs long trailer. Even I could do a better job than this.

» Mon May 14, 2012 12:29 pm

Just throw me on the pile for people who knew of Tarzan (pre-Disney) who didn't know of John Carter & who didn't get any thing useful from the few times I've seen the commercial

"A guy fighting a monster in the desert?! apparently his name might be John Carter."

was my thought.

I too knew about Tarzan before Disney's revisioning of it and I've also never heard of John Carter before the movie trailer.

» Mon May 14, 2012 5:00 pm

When the character's name is in the title the first question the marketing has to answer is "Why should I give a [censored], and why is he important".

All I see is some aliens fighting and a few spaceships, some idea of the plot would be nice. Besides saving Mars.

Problem with movie previews, they either give you only a little to where you don't know what the film is about and don't care, or they give away to much and your disappointed the only good bits were already given away on TV.

» Mon May 14, 2012 4:16 pm

When the character's name is in the title the first question the marketing has to answer is "Why should I give a [censored], and why is he important".

All I see is some aliens fighting and a few spaceships, some idea of the plot would be nice. Besides saving Mars.

Problem with movie previews, they either give you only a little to where you don't know what the film is about and don't care, or they give away to much and your disappointed the only good bits were already given away on TV.

i am noticing that one or the either seems to be more prevelant to specific genres. i find that alot of action movies tend to give almost no information about what the movie is about while comedies seem to show the funniest parts of the movie while the rest is just not as good (kind of like the adam sandler movie: funny people, which turned out to be depressing)

also @mumatil, your avatar shot a laser into my eye and told me that i was not worthy. That or two days without sleep means i am hallucinating again.

» Mon May 14, 2012 8:50 am

All I see is some aliens fighting and a few spaceships, some idea of the plot would be nice. Besides saving Mars.

It's basically a pulp version of Dune, assuming they more or less follow the plot of the book. Human goes to alien world (not a desert in the book though) goes native, saves world.

Wait, spaceships? WTF? I thought they only had airships...