So the house of the mouse are forecasting a huge loss for John Carter, which was to be expected. Wasn’t it?
In my humble, miserable opinion, here are a few observations. Firstly I’m amazed that quite alot of the American press praised the hell out of the movie. On this side of the pond, Carter wasn’t so well received by us “movie hacks” or “media scum” if you prefer. That said, it just goes to show that audiences aren’t entirely pushed about critical opinion. Funny though, how the American press loved it, and nobody went to see it, over here, maybe it’s more of a spite thing for critics. That aside, on my own radio show quite a number of people bitched, moaned and swore at Carters bore fest. It’s like some went to see the movie to spite my review. Anyway, all that ego stroking aside, here’s where I think it went wrong.
Age: For a story thats a hundred years old, did anybody think to ask can it translate to audiences today? Surely life on Mars would equate into a gigantic science fiction epic that didn’t have cool (ish) spaceships and bloody cutlasses straight out of Errol Flynn land. And while Edgar Rice Burroughs may have well created Tarzan and friendly chimpanzees, his ideas of an advanced time far into the future didn’t have enough depth, or more importantly vision.
Big Star: No discredit to Taylor Kitsch, the dude is a decent actor, but unfortunately his name didn’t mean squat to average cinema going audiences. If a bigger named star was attached, ala the Tom Cruises of the world, we might still be looking at a bore festival, but one wonders what kind of weight a heavy weight can bring to a movie. Boring or otherwise. Keeping Cruise in mind, a new Tom Cruise movie is an event, and Hollywood has relied on names as opposed to titles for sometime. Tragically a new Taylor Kitsch movie, is just a movie.
Geek Factor: Geeks are the champions of obscure movies. Lets face it, it was always going to be a predominately geek audience that were aware of the original novels. These are the people that post shit continuously on websites, spread the viral campaigns and get all excited. These are the same people who don’t go outside the door from one end of the week to the next. Not that theres nothing wrong with that, each to their own and all. But! It’s all about bums on seats. Just ask Edgar Wright about Scott Pilgrim. And that was a decent movie!
Studio: I’m aware of a million things that are floating around about Disney and Andrew Stanton from debates about Led Zepplin and Stanton being “difficult” in some respects. Again heresay to a point. But! Did anybody at the house of the mouse look at the bank balance and go “Holy fuck!! We’re spending all this money on a movie, that well…um….actually…whats this about?” For an industry that does quite the amount of focus groups, test screenings (hence a number of reshoots) and market research, was there an alarm bell going off anywhere? Before the green light button was pressed where was the research to say a novel 100 years old would make a good movie? Surely a 10 minute run around LA alone would have got them an answer?
Andrew Stanton: He was one of the first animators in the door at Pixar and is an immense talent, and I’ve read and heard the interviews that says John Carter was for him, a work of art. He has in the past, produced some brilliant pieces of “art”. But Carter, seemed very self indulgent. It was one of his boyhood favourites and it’s great to see passion in somebody these days, but it seemed like he kept his head down and ploughed through all of this, hoping for the best. He made a movie for himself, not for an audience. And one has to ask, what’s the point in that? If every DJ in every nightclub played for themselves every night, then you’d have very empty dancefloors. I just hope the guy hasn’t written off his career with this epic loss. Surely it’s the hope of every director to have their movie seen and appreciated by as many people as possible.
Dialogue: Carter features what feels like days of dialogue. When people see a movie that starts with a dude teleported to Mars with giant aliens, they don’t want hours of talkie talkie. They want action, they want entertainment. They want a popcorn movie. If they wanted a cure for insomnia they’d seek medical help.
But what would I know? I’m only one of the online media scum. I also work in the medium of radio 5 days a week (more scum), where my job is to serve an audience. Sometimes its awful rubbish to me, but it super serves an audience for what THEY want, not what I want and thats according to my ratings. Was John Carter what people wanted? For some of the reason outlined above, no it wasn’t. Some execs obviously thought it was, but the Disney accountants? They think otherwise….now.
I can appreciate that I’m another one of the media scum with an opinion and hindsight, but if it were not for the media scum uploading images and videos and clips and taking part in viral campaigns, the mouse bank balance could be alot worse off. Stanton and company have to take the criticism on board.
On a final note, John Carter may well shape the future for big budget movies, which may now be met with more studio caution than before. And while the movie was set on another planet, it has certainly brought alot of people back to planet earth very, very quickly.
