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How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer
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Author:  Rev [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 12:45 am ]
Post subject:  How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

The Inside Story

Author:  Bryan_smith [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 1:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

I just saw the film tonight.

It was doomed because it is a mediocre movie that they stupidly spent $250 million on.
Had it had a decent sized budget, it would have been a small hit perhaps. But word of mouth isn't going to help this at all, and it will get slaughtered next weekend by the Hunger Games.

Many argued the trailers for Avatar were lackluster, and while the opening weekend was nothing box office shattering, we all know how the legs held up. Because it was a good movie with good word of mouth. John Carter could have overcome it's shakey trailers and advertisments IF it had been a good movie, and capitalized on an emptier markerplace in March. Instead it is a dud, and leaves the field wide open for The Hunger Games to capitalize on the empty marketplace instead....

Author:  Jack Sparrow [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

While I do agree the marketing wasn't good enough, there were times when they did good marketing and tried a lot of different strategies. The funny part is MOST of the times they failed with their approaches. To add to this the movie in itself wasn't as great as it could have been. While the WOM seems much better than the reviews the previous stale marketing handcuffed any chances of ignited interests.

Author:  MadGez [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 7:39 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

Stanton obviously played a key role in this bombing (though not the only role - what were Disney thinking with the budget!?). Dont think studios will take much of a gamble with him directing live action again. He's the opposite of Brad Bird who seems to have a great live action career ahead of him. Quite fitting seeing that Bird directed Pixar's strongest films while IMO Stanton's were weakest.

Author:  Brian [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 8:51 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

WALL-E is the most beautiful piece of art on Earth

Author:  Nazgul9 [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 9:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

The movie wasn't all that bad, i liked it, actually. Tons of mediocre movies make more money, Carter is a harder sell and marketing sucked (which Stanton - who seems to think very highly of himself - had a hand in).

Author:  zingy [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 9:34 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

In the end, I blame Disney for letting the budget spiral out of control. If the film needed a $60m opening just to break even in the end, something should have clicked. It was a sci-fi film that wasn't even a sequel and they somehow spent more money on it than films that warrant it (Transformers 3 costs $195m, and its a sequel to a movie that made $836m worldwide). Some things are just a no-brainer.

Author:  nghtvsn [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

I think the bigger problem was that general audiences didn't know the original product and thought it looked silly. The silly perception is just the general opinion of people I've spoken to about the film.

I do agree that since the film is only an okay somewhat entertaining film that is another reason why it didn't succeed here.

Author:  A. G. [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:22 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

It's an interesting article and I'm glad you linked it but it reads like a studio exec covering their ass with leaks trying to shift blame onto the director. I disagree with the assertion in the article that a problem with the trailer was too much estrogen, in fact the opposite is true.

John Carter himself was a pretty standard, cookie cutter character, but Dejah Thoris was the most interesting and complex character in the film and the axis around which the story turned. The trailer gave the wrong impression that she was just some sort of space-babe girlfriend of JC when she's more like a live-action Disney princess. Which happens to be a product that Disney knows well how to sell.

The trailer should have started out detailing her plight and then showed how John Carter's arrival disrupted and changed the dynamic in a heroic way. They also should have expanded her role, added more character and emotional scenes and lessened the stuff with "Sola". Possibly even going so far as to call it Princess of Mars. Frankly even just "Of Mars" would have been a better title than John Carter if it came to that.

Quote:
The movie wasn't all that bad

I agree. I was a bit bored but the film still had a lot going for it, the pieces were interesting they just weren't put together right. It was certainly better than many FX blockbusters I've seen including last year's shit-fest Cowboys and Aliens. And I liked it more than Avatar.

Author:  Brian [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:28 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

Disney was out of this wold with JC budget, but in the end the film brought what it had to, a real and great adaptation from the book, however the movie itself will seem very complex and hard to understand for most people

Author:  Proud Ryu [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:47 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

That seems like a good point A.G. about how they should have marketed.

One of my favorite quotes from the article is "...the protagonist has little pop-culture currency among most moviegoers; they were more likely to hear the title and wonder why Disney set a movie about Noah Wyle’s ER character in space."

This is a good Hollywood tale of ego, delusions, and stubbornness.

I was kind of shocked by how desperate the last trailer I saw seemed, dropping "from the studio that brought you Pirates...". In the hierarchy of trailer name-dropping, "from the studio" is about as low as you can go. They also used Star Wars and Avatar in too desperate a way. It made it sound like "this is a crappier version of two extremely popular sci fi fantasy properties."

I really think they should have played up the historical angle. This really could have benefitted from the trend of talking to filmmakers behind the scenes in the trailers and have them gush about Burroughs and his influence.

Author:  Nazgul9 [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:56 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

The film felt rushed, going through the motions, as a result parts dragged because you didn't feel as invested. The biggest WTF moment was them getting married, they didn't earn that marriage.

Author:  Jack Sparrow [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:57 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

^Exactly, generally that rushed up feeling can be felt at times in animated movies because it is difficult to hold those audience for a longer time, but that is fine because the story is meant to be one-dimensional and light-hearted. Here they tried a rushed up approach over multi-layered and complex storyline, more-so concentrating IF-sequels were made rather than let's make THIS movie.

Author:  Bryan_smith [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 12:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

bryanbmp wrote:
Disney was out of this wold with JC budget, but in the end the film brought what it had to, a real and great adaptation from the book, however the movie itself will seem very complex and hard to understand for most people


Complex and hard to understand?
It couldn't have been more straightforawrd. There was nothing that was hard to understand..

Author:  Brian [ Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

Quote:
Analyst: Disney's 'John Carter' Write-Down 'May Not Be as Bad as Feared'

Janney's Tony Wible says a widely expected write-down on the expensive film may only reach around $53 million, and the movie could even end up being profitable in an unlikely best-case scenario.



http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/j ... oss-300019

Author:  almost famous [ Thu Mar 15, 2012 4:56 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

bryanbmp wrote:
Quote:
Analyst: Disney's 'John Carter' Write-Down 'May Not Be as Bad as Feared'

Janney's Tony Wible says a widely expected write-down on the expensive film may only reach around $53 million, and the movie could even end up being profitable in an unlikely best-case scenario.



http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/j ... oss-300019


He said himself that the best case is improbable. And even his average scenario is far too optimistic. Those average multiplyers just make no sense.

Author:  Brian [ Thu Mar 15, 2012 8:21 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

almost famous wrote:
bryanbmp wrote:
Quote:
Analyst: Disney's 'John Carter' Write-Down 'May Not Be as Bad as Feared'

Janney's Tony Wible says a widely expected write-down on the expensive film may only reach around $53 million, and the movie could even end up being profitable in an unlikely best-case scenario.



http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/j ... oss-300019


He said himself that the best case is improbable. And even his average scenario is far too optimistic. Those average multiplyers just make no sense.


Agree, but that's what the "analyst" says

Author:  Nazgul9 [ Thu Mar 15, 2012 8:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

almost famous wrote:
And even his average scenario is far too optimistic. Those average multiplyers just make no sense.

Sure they do. 3.2 multi DOM makes sense, as does $318m WW total, seems even a little low if you ask me.

Author:  almost famous [ Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:26 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

Nazgul9 wrote:
almost famous wrote:
And even his average scenario is far too optimistic. Those average multiplyers just make no sense.

Sure they do. 3.2 multi DOM makes sense, as does $318m WW total, seems even a little low if you ask me.


Disney multiplyers? Are you kidding? Building some theories on average studio multiplyers with so many different live action and animated films, sequels and original projects? And besides BoM said that Disney $70.6m foreign estimate could be actually much lower with actuals. It lost $1mln in Russia only.

Author:  almost famous [ Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:41 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

And I forget to say that in Russia the expected frop for JC is between 65-70%. Still by far the biggest market.

Author:  Brian [ Thu Mar 15, 2012 10:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

The ones who are interested, (almost no one on this and many other sites), could join this group

http://www.facebook.com/groups/288143804588289/

People, calm down, disney will get back loads of money with the avengers and brave and also with merchandising from both films,

Author:  Nazgul9 [ Thu Mar 15, 2012 10:47 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

almost famous wrote:
Disney multiplyers? Are you kidding?

What don't you understand? Are you saying a multiplyer of a little over 3 is crazy? Since when? Sure, it could fall short but probably not by much.

Author:  almost famous [ Thu Mar 15, 2012 11:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

Nazgul9 wrote:
almost famous wrote:
Disney multiplyers? Are you kidding?

What don't you understand? Are you saying a multiplyer of a little over 3 is crazy? Since when? Sure, it could fall short but probably not by much.


You still do not understand. Any analysis based on "average" multiplyer is stupid. If you believe it should be 3.2 or 2.5 or any other number you should provide reasonable explanation, numbers for comparable movies e.t.c. Make average multiplyer from Toy Story 3, Tangled, Prince of Persia and Pirates 4 and use it for any future Disney movie? Doesn't make any sense.

Author:  Jack Sparrow [ Thu Mar 15, 2012 12:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

I cannot tell much about non-theaterical sales but $95m domestic and $220m OS seems doable, I think in OS it might crack $250m with a slight chance of $275m. Can't be sure of that $143m and $48m but I believe the numbers will be close. I don't see the movie loosing $53m only but somewhere close to $70m-$80m over the lifetime does not sound that bad. Unlike MnM and similar to PoP its OS numbers will save it.

Author:  Proud Ryu [ Thu Mar 15, 2012 12:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: How John Carter Was Doomed by Its First Trailer

I'd give Carter about a 2.7-2.8 multiplier domestic.

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