"John Carter" tracking could indicate a massive flop

[Cogswel_Cogs]

So anybody care ti guess the weekend gross.

I am going with 59m.

 

[doconeill]

So anybody care ti guess the weekend gross.

I am going with 59m.

Some predictions are coming in at a little more than $30m domestically.

Yet it broke opening day records in Russia.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

So is a Jedi FP able to get more than 15 minutes leway?

I think they will beat 30M, no other action stuff out, but when Hunger Games comes out you gotta figure its over for JC.

 

[doconeill]

So is a Jedi FP able to get more than 15 minutes leway?

We can, of course, just wave our hand and the CM will see that our FP is always on time...

 

[lockedoutlogic]

Jar jar binks

 

[crazy4wdw]

Looks like John Carter is off to a slow start at the box office.


Box Office Report: 'John Carter' Earns Weak $9.8 Mil on Friday, Younger Fanboys Largely AWOL

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/john-carter-the-lorax-box-office-298284

 

[lockedoutlogic]

Complete disaster... As expected

Any doubt that a call to Jack Sparrow was Placed from Burbank this morning?

 

[tjkraz]

Yeah, JC is a bomb. I agree with prior comments that the marketing was poor but with so many mediocre reviews, better marketing would have been analogous to lipstick on a pig.

As for Avengers, I think that's a shoo-in for $300-400M domestic.

Sure there is a certain "fanboy" demographic that these super hero films all appeal to. But each fanboy still makes unique see/don't see decisions based upon the film's merits. Personally I've seen most of the X-Men movies in the theater, the first Iron Man, Dark Knight and some of the older Batman films.

But more recently, I saw IM2 in a discount theater 2-3 months after release. Skipped Thor and Green Lantern altogether. Did see Captain America--which was very good--the weekend of its release.

Avengers is approaching event movie-status IMO. The cast alone is so diverse. The names alone (Downey, Evans, Hemsworth, Renner) are enough to draw in wives and girlfriends. I can understand individuals not seeing the appeal in stand-alone films with Thor, CA, IM, etc. But throw them all together and the target audience grows dramatically.

Iron Man 2 earned over $300 mil in the US and wasn't as good as the first. Unless Avengers is a real stink bomb, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't attract the same crowd as IM2, and then some.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

Went and saw John Carter in IMAX 3D today. It was a decent movie, not horrible, but short of some of the other movies about to hit the market. My biggest complaint, I think of the movie is the character development was very disjointed, I could have fallen for John Carter if they really focused on his character development more.

Unfortunately this is going to be a big miss for Disney.

 

[crazy4wdw]

box office mojo is estimating the weekend box office for John Carter at 30,600,000. The foreign box office was around 70 million so its total take for the weekend is a little over 100 million.

 

[skier_pete]

Interesting that movies can now be "saved" by foreign Box Office takes. That's what John Carter will need.

We don't go to movies a lot but ended up seeing it this weekend because we had free baby sitting. My wife and I both liked it, but didn't love it. My wife said she did like it more than she expected, and would see a sequel if they made one. I know they tend to put these kids of movies in March now-a-days, but this seemed more like a summer movie to me. Think Disney didn't have a great movie on it's hands, and it showed in the marketing. Disappointed for Andrew Stanton, as he did some great work with Nemo and Wall*E, but I am sure this won't be his last shot. Definitely Brad Bird fared the better with their 1st time live action tentpoles.

 

[amwhitaker]

Saw John Carter last night with hubby. We both liked it, but didn't love it. I agree that JC's character needed more development so that the audience could connect to him more. I still would see a sequel if they have one.

There's a classic hidden Mickey on Dejah's right arm.

 

[doconeill]

I think that's a common thought...good but not great. And I think it is suffering from the early buzz.

The international box office might save it somewhat from being a record breaking disaster, and it might do better domestically if it had some time before the next big movie, but I thinking Hunger Games is going to eat Mars for lunch

I read this interesting review:

http://www.comicsbeat.com/2012/03/12/john-carter-flop-or-victim/

I noticed Nikki Finke's apparent hatred towards the movie before...

 

[PatriciaH]

I loved it! I think Disney really blew the marketing on this one.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

There's a classic hidden Mickey on Dejah's right arm.

Glad I wasn't the only one who thought that...the only part that was a miss was the head was a tad too small for the ears, but it was definately intentional. Partner totally missed it.

 

[tjkraz]

Vulture has an interesting story claiming that Andrew Stanton handcuffed the marketing department throughout production:

http://www.vulture.com/2012/03/john-carter-doomed-by-first-trailer.html

There are two sides to every story and some of this could just be "spin." But many of the claims made do fit the circumstances.

Personally I thought the original teaser trailer was the best of the bunch. Made me want to see / know more.

Unfortunately later efforts un-did that work, as did the relatively poor word-of-mouth.

Overall I sense I may end up liking it but the wife and kids have no desire to see it. And given today's theater prices, I'm not going to play my "do it for dad" card on John Carter.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

EW did a quite thorough - if even a little subdued - highlight of the mistakes made on John Carter in its weekend wrapup yesterday...

A movie with a top ten budget in history being thoroughly trounced by Dr. Suess is on the level of Cutthroat Island.

But to summarize, here's what they highlighted:

No star power...nobody recognizable to provide draw - which all movies - even blockbusters - need on some level. Identification with the actors in a movie is still much more of a reason people go to the movies - on average - in exit polling.

Assumption that the audience knew the character/ story in the marketing campaign. That's a pretty monumental blunder in a movie that is based off a serial comic from 1917. Most of the movie going crowd these days couldn't identify a "book" in a police lineup. Disney assumes the audience - especially the American one - is far more intelligent than it is. And then...they treat us like outright fools when it comes to the parks - no greyscale.

Horrid advertising...no uniformity to anything. Probably because there wasn't much to work with - no stars and no story recognition.

Where'd the money go? It's not like they were paying Johnny Depp 30 mil for this? They spent 200 million dollars on overpriced special effects...
Again - eerily similar to some of the mistakes made in the parks these days.


And back to the parks...this is the problem. When they flop and take a huge loss on a movie like this...or, with dvd sales, probably fail to make a big profit...we park goers get squeezed.
That is the reality...flops lead to less things for us to play with in the longrun. And that is why the management is going to have to be replaced - again - in an attempt to not erode the brand. Two horrid high budget flops in one calender year is not good enough. That - combined with a truly BAD pixar movie (first of its kind)...mean a whole heap of trouble on the horizon.

And i'll have to spend 10 bucks more a day at the gate to make up for it. IT's complicated - but all the pennies are fed into the same, elaborate math equation. There are quite a few people at the studios who are packing their desks because of this one - my guess.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

Doesn't Disney own Pixar?
Wouldn't they do most the effects, or are they only animation.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

Doesn't Disney own Pixar?
Wouldn't they do most the effects, or are they only animation.

Disney does own pixar...but pixare does computer animation - not necessarily special effects.

25 years ago...it was pretty easy. Most movies were live action, and if they had stunts - it was done by stuntmen or with dynamite.
The "blockbuster" movie that spawned in the early 80's might have "special effects"...and those were done by Industrial Light and Magic.

ILM was created to do the effects for Star Wars...and to this day is responsible for the lions share of the developments in SFX technology.

James Cameron...disney's new best friend...started trying to do his own SFX in the early 1990's...and some of the work shifted away from ILM to new upstarts or big movie houses who explored ways to not give their money to George Lucas...

Some notable films of the late 1990's/early 2000's saw the development of "inhouse" special effects departments that spun off into new companies for hire. The Matrix and the Lord of the Rings movies being the best two examples of such instances.

Now there are dozens of sfx companies out there...but i don't believe that disney is in the game itself. Either way, the bill for JC must be quite impressive.

As opposed to the quality of the actual effects themselves.

 

[MarylandPirate]

I enjoyed the movie, 300 seat theater that was packed and majority of movie goers applauded when movie ended.