CNN’s Gene Seymour: Why Hunger Games Soared, and John Carter Didn’t

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CNN’s Gene Seymour has posted his views on why Hunger Games connected with audiences in a way that John Carter did not.  I’m a little bit cautious about posting these kind of articles because I know most of those who come here are, as I am, passionate fans of at least the ERB books, and usually of the movie as well.  I want to ask your indulgence though — we can’t just live in a bubble and not consider the implications of what has happened.  John Carter is not the bomb it’s being made out to be, and there are global box office receipts to prove it.  But it was never going to be a $155m opening weekend — nor did it have to be in order to succeed.  In any event, we’re not going to run from the Hunger Games and hide around here, we’re going to try and understand what happened and why and hope that in the process a path forward for sequels to John Carter will eventually present itself. Right now that seems a longshot …. but understanding what works, and what doesn’t work, is part of that process.

The Hunger Games and John Carter

CNN) — Pure products of Hollywood, “The Hunger Games” and “John Carter” were conceived, designed, stretched and pre-tested with one purpose: to lighten billfolds while satisfying mass appetites.

These two movies seemed especially intent on seizing the wavering attention spans of young people with premises deeply rooted in science-fiction — or, as some genre lovers might prefer to call it, speculative phantasmagoria.

Same goals, different results. Drastically. Different. Results.

Hunger Games, in case you hadn’t heard by now, has exceeded advance expectations by reaping $155 million in its first three days of nationwide release. That’s the third-highest opening tally in box-office history, just beneath the $158.4 million drawn from 2008’s Batman sequel, “The Dark Knight,” and not too far removed from the $169.2 million made last summer by “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II.”

Gene Seymour

Those latter two features were sequels, while “Hunger Games” is just the first installment of what will almost certainly be a trilogy of films made from Suzanne Collins’ phenomenally popular trilogy of books. The stories are set in a dystopian future in which a totalitarian society forces teenagers to engage in globally televised ritual murder. This means that “Hunger Games” made the biggest, fattest opening-weekend nut of any movie that wasn’t a sequel or spin-off.

Meanwhile, after two weeks in the Great American Multiplex, “John Carter” continues to tumble in what many believe is a downward spiral of similarly unprecedented dimension.

Disney’s lavish, $250 million adaptation of the swords-on-Mars fantasy novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs brought in $5 million, increasing its overall box office to $62.3 million — roughly half of which was made in its own opening weekend. Those using the word “epic” to classify “John Carter” now use it to describe its estimated $200 million shortfall.

“John Carter,” for whatever it’s worth, isn’t quite as dismal a movie as it is a moneymaker. Thirty, even 20 years ago, it might have been exotic enough to be taken for pop-cultural innovation. Now it comes across as a lumbering, good-natured oaf who happened to stumble into the marketplace at the wrong time. On the other hand, “The Hunger Games,” with its reality-TV-on-toxic-drugs premise, is so very much “of its time” that it’s tempting to think much of its imagined future has already arrived. (Do you feel a draft? I do.)

Meanwhile, those who approach “John Carter” with foreknowledge of its box-office crash-and-burn might be surprised to see how charming it can be at times, especially when its eponymous Civil War veteran-turned-rhino-riding superhero (Taylor Kitsch) is adjusting his previously Earth-bound muscles to Martian gravity. In its heedlessly bombastic manner, the movie is faithful to its origins as a rip-snorting romantic fantasy much like Burroughs’ far more famous stories featuring Tarzan. If the producers were more willing to let Andrew Stanton direct the movie as the garish, live-action comic strip it was meant to be, it might have connected, though not necessarily for a home run.

But even the decision to call the movie “John Carter,” instead of “John Carter of Mars” or even “A Princess of Mars,” the actual title of Burroughs’ first installment of the Carter opus, is emblematic of an over-cautiousness that dampens every sequence and set-piece. The whole movie feels worked-over, second-guessed, whipped to a thickness that hobbles the movie’s momentum. It’s as if “John Carter” wants you to see every single one of those aforementioned millions of dollars up on the screen. And who besides an accountant would care?

Read the rest at CNN

COMMENT:  I think the most interesting part of this article is this quote:  “John Carter,” for whatever it’s worth, isn’t quite as dismal a movie as it is a moneymaker. Thirty, even 20 years ago, it might have been exotic enough to be taken for pop-cultural innovation. Now it comes across as a lumbering, good-natured oaf who happened to stumble into the marketplace at the wrong time. On the other hand, “The Hunger Games,” with its reality-TV-on-toxic-drugs premise, is so very much “of its time” that it’s tempting to think much of its imagined future has already arrived. (Do you feel a draft? I do.)

I think that issue of “of its time” is an interesting one not because John Carter is not “of its time”, so much as — the need to recognize that it’s not “of its time” and figure out how to make that work in the same way you would with, say, a period movie, which it is, by the way.  Andrew Stanton made the point that he approached it like a historical epic — and the post civil war era-ishness of it all is sustained throughout, with Barsoom being imagined in steampunk fashion.

The question is – was anyone involved in the promotion really thinking about this, and wondering — how do we make this work? If the film-maker was going in the direction of “historical fantasy” with steampunk sensibilities, how then to make that seem attractive to audiences of today?  After all, isn’t that pretty much the way it is with Lord of the Rings?  How was New Line able to make it connect in ways that Disney could not with John Carter?

It’s all food for thought at this point.

13 comments

  • Now imagine a trailer as follows:

    DT: I’m Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium!
    JC: Helium? You mean the gas … for balloons?
    DT: Helium is a CITY: Barsoom’s TOP nation!!!
    JC: Never heard of …
    DT: Holy ignorance! Where did you go to school? I mean, even if your teachers were from Zodanga …
    JC: No, from Virginia, though I wish I’d had you, Miss.
    DT (lips only): How dare …
    JC: Please, teach me all about your world, Dejah Thoris!
    TT: It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it, Princess.

    Do you think that would have helped to introduce the subject?

  • I see that you are putting forward some good questions in your comment and since nobody has yet tried to answer your food for thought I’ll give it a try:

    I want to start with to your information that “Andrew Stanton (…) approached it like a historical epic”.

    I found this really interesting, because it adds even another key of interpretation. In my previous comments I have called the movie a failed Dances with Tharks, a half-baked James Bond plot, an Avatar rip-off and a relic hunter episode, which are all very harsh words in extreme contrast to how much I really appreciated it.
    The problem is that “John Carter” is all of it, but nothing in a really consequent manner.

    The same applies to Stanton’s claim that he planned it as a historic epic. I’d immensely loved to see it: kind of Dances with Tharks turning into Braveheart the Winner! It would have been huge. But if you want to do it that way, you need to accept the rules of the genre. And a historic epic needs to develop and needs to divide, it can’t work without some serious conflict on essential values and some important change as the final result. And you cannot do a historic epic the same way you do a James Bond episode, where the confrontation is already clear. In a completely new world like Barsoom, you need to make clear who stands for what.
    To name some examples, the conflict may be on cleavages such as imperialism/independence, humanity/brutality, illumination/false religions etc. The tragedy is that Stanton had it all at hands, because the conflict between scientific progress and false prophets, between free thought and religious fundamentalism is almost omnipresent in Burroughs’ novels.

    Unfortunately the movie didn’t develop it. Neither were there other significant divides. The only question of importance was whether the good or the evil guy would marry the princess. This reminds more the plot of “Aladdin” and can’t be enough for a historic epic, which should lead to some more important change than just a desired marriage.

    Apparently Stanton never really decided where his epic was bound and then he didn’t even respect the rules of each of the possible genres. This is the reason why it is such an easy exercise to rip “John Carter” apart under almost every aspect. But it’s a shame, because ultimately it is still a very enjoyable movie that deserves praise for as many other aspects.

    Let’s get back to my little dialogue to see how it is possible to divide the audience even with something completely off topic (btw, I’ve added a final line for Tars Tarkas):

    TT (introducing): Your savior, Princess, our prisoner Dotar Sojat!
    DT: I’m Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium!
    JC: Helium? You mean the gas … for balloons?
    DT: Helium is a CITY: Barsoom’s TOP nation!!!
    JC: Never heard of …
    DT: Holy ignorance! Where did you go to school? I mean, even if your teachers were from Zodanga …
    JC: No, from Virginia, though I wish I’d had you, Miss … Mam … my Princess …
    DT (lips only): How dare …
    JC: Oh, I’m sorry! … My most sincere … excuses, Mylady! … Actually, I wasn’t aware, … Your Highness? … (Instantly) Please, teach me all about your world, Dejah Thoris!
    DT (to Tars Tarkas): You said, Dotar Sojat? Your prisoner?
    JC: No, my name is John Carter from Virginia, my … Mylady!
    DT: So, first you should learn, Dotar Sojat or John Carter from Virginia, that nobody has the right to call me “my Princess” … unless he has offered his sword and his life to fight for me.
    JC: But, … I have fought …
    DT (to Tars Tarkas): I’m afraid, you gave me a hard labor of love, Jeddak, to teach this prisoner how to behave. But since he has saved the daughter of Tardos Mors and his line of thousand Jeddaks from Helium, I just have to give it my very best.
    TT: It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it, Princess. Sola will help you for the worst of it.

    When you imagine this dialogue going on, you should be able to perceive how the audience almost immediately starts to divide – between republicans and monarchists: Republicans will relate to John Carter and feel slightly nerved by Dejah’s aristocratic pride, while monarchists will relate to Dejah, deploring Carter’s lack of etiquette. These little cleavages are what people really care about and what makes them relate to the figures of a book or a movie. But did you notice any real difference between John Carter and Dejah Thoris? They appeared as two young people who could have grown up even in the same street!

    Now to your questions: “If the film-maker was going in the direction of “historical fantasy” with steampunk sensibilities, how then to make that seem attractive to audiences of today? After all, isn’t that pretty much the way it is with Lord of the Rings? How was New Line able to make it connect in ways that Disney could not with John Carter?”

    My little dialogue may help to understand even this: If you want your hero to become really huge, you have to make him smaller in the start. Do you remember Harry Potter in the cupboard under the stairs which was a key scene for the entire series? Or do you know why Spiderman worked so well? Because they were quite ordinary people in sometimes pretty uncomfortable situations. Stanton tried to introduce something similar with the scenes in Arizona, but not every movie-goer is a veteran from Iraq who can easily relate to a soldier tired of fighting. Stanton should have added some more for the kids, like I have tried in my dialogue.
    Certainly, Carter had his moments of humiliation, in the fort and while he was raised with the little Tharks, but never facing Dejah Thoris. So these episodes were more fun than real suffering.
    Carter was huge from the moment he put his foot on Mars, and as a result during the whole film we never really doubted that he would get his beloved princess. Since you named Lord of the Rings: Tolkien’s halflings start as very small and ordinary people, and this is the reason why they manage to grow bigger for an entire trilogy. If you consider this, everybody should understand that Carter’s first leaps on Barsoom were already too huge and should have been counterbalanced at least by some psychological humiliation.

    Unfortunately the last point is also a strong argument against a sequel: Stanton’s John Carter is already so huge (for example his leap with Kantos Kan) that it’s quite hard to imagine how he might grow in a second movie. I’m really sorry to say this and I still hope that they do it. But I think that John Carter needs a humble return to more modest origins if we want him to succeed.

  • There aren’t too many big budget epic Sci-Fi adventure movies that are good, cool and entertaining , and it kind of burns me that Disney, after only being released for 2 weeks is called it a flop. They dropped the ball on advertising. I really don’t understand the logic in calling it a loss after the 2nd week; do they want it to fail? During that same time period, it was the number 1 movie outside the U.S..If you look at the global numbers, it really hasn’t done that bad. Word of mouth and if Disney really wanted to pull in some more revenue a reworked trailer eg: If you haven’t seen it yet, etc etc. could be a boost for this movie…..

  • Raja — you didn’t see this announcement, did you? From the time machine (note the date):

    January 14, 2014: In an announcement that none would have thought possible two short years ago, new Disney Studios Chairman [insert name] announced that the House of Mouse will be making John Carter sequels after all — two of them at the same time, in fact. “Productio of John Carter of Mars, and the Warlord of Mars will be carried out concurrently, with principal photography beginning in early 2015.”

    Industry analysts cited several factors in the reversal of John Carter’s fortunes. First, new management at Walt Disney Studios was able to secure the agreement of Director Andrew Stanton to produce the two films on a combined budget of 275 million — approximately the same budget that the first John Carter film cost the studio. “All of the prototypes are set; all the CGI; the designs — this is a radically different proposition,” noted [studio chief]

    Analysts also credited a loud, creative, and persistent effort by fans of the first film who mobilized social media in unprecedented ways to convince the studio not only of the intensity of their passion for the project — but of their ability to mobile, network, and generate buzz. “We feel like the college football team with the proverbial ’12th man'”, Disney noted. “Only in this situation, that 12th man is already in the game and will stay there for the duration.”

    😉

  • They party’s over kids!
    I’m seeing it again for probably the last time tomorrow.
    Otherwise, it’s gone the way of Greystoke : The Legend of Tarzan. It’ll take time for people to appreciate this film.
    But a sequel? To a movie the studio disowned after 2 weeks?
    Never gonna happen.
    Back to the books!

  • Since this is the more recent article and you called it “food for thought” I repost the best of my thoughts here:

    One problem of John Carter is that Stanton & Co. didn’t manage to relate to young people of the 21st century. They tried hard and they had some excellent ideas, but they didn’t really work, because they remained half-baken and not very original. Their main ideas to give the movie a more relevant plot were basically three:
    1. Carter is a weary veteran, which appears as a rip-off from Avatar (and many others), though I admit that Stanton did it it much better than Cameron. I really appreciated the quite subtle way this sub-plot was interwoven, while I never really managed to relate to the protagonist of Avatar.
    2. Carter, with Dejah’s help, has to find a secret device to allow his return to Earth. A not very original relic hunter mission that forces them to chase all the time after the secret of the Therns.
    3. Opposing the Therns, Carter not only saves Barsoom, but also the Earth. This is the usual James-Bond-plot since 1962, though quite weak and never turning into a focal point. Neither Barsoom appears very much doomed (if not in the words of Matai Shang), though it should, since Burroughs conceived it as a dying planet. Two half-heartedly threatened planets add to almost no threat at all.

    In a similar way Stanton’s movie missed on several other central themes in Burroughs’ novels, most of all the human core of friendship beyond all racial, cultural, religious and other interplanetary divides (a theme much better developed in Dances with Wolves, which turns out to a large degree as a rip-off from the first half of Princess of Mars) and second Burroughs’ most modern theme, the eternal conflict between religious beliefs and scientific knowledge (suffering most of all the absence of a scientific adversary for Matai Shang among the Heliumites, where Dejah Thoris is left to do all the science alone without even one assistant).

    Coming back to the problem, how to meet the younger fans with your product, I am convinced that narration matters. Stanton’s movie relied too much on fantastic creatures and bold leaps and didn’t focus enough on relating its protagonists to each other and to the audience.

    A hero needs obstacles as a chance to grow, even in his human relations. So he needs to fight to convince his love and the public. In Stanton’s movie however it felt, as if Carter was already beloved by everyone who counts (even Matai Shang/Prof. Snape?). An orphan of ten like Harry Potter may get away with that, but a thirty-year old war veteran?

    The love story between Carter and Dejah is treated in a similar way. From the first moment they have no choice than falling in love, while this should be a process full of misunderstandings and other accidents, in other words: a conquest from planet to planet, that can’t rely only on your earth-trained muscles.

    Could it have been done better? Certainly it could, but the movie must do its part. So please, take away that awful Wikipedia-style introduction on Barsoom and imagine that John Carter and Dejah Thoris met somehow in the following way:

    TT (introducing): Your savior, Princess, our prisoner Dotar Sojat!
    DT: I’m Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium!
    JC: Helium? You mean the gas … for balloons?
    DT: Helium is a CITY: Barsoom’s TOP nation!!!
    JC: Never heard of …
    DT: Holy ignorance! Where did you go to school? I mean, even if your teachers were from Zodanga …
    JC: No, from Virginia, though I wish I’d had you, Miss … Mam … my Princess …
    DT (lips only): How dare …
    JC: Oh, I’m sorry! … My most sincere … excuses, Mylady! … Actually, I wasn’t aware, … Your Highness? … (Instantly) Please, teach me all about your world, Dejah Thoris!
    DT (to Tars Tarkas): You said, Dotar Sojat? Your prisoner?
    JC: No, my name is John Carter from Virginia, my … Mylady.
    DT: So, first you should learn, Dotar Sojat or John Carter from Virginia, that nobody has the right to call me “my Princess” … unless he has offered his sword and his life to fight for me.
    JC: But, … I have fought …
    DT (to Tars Tarkas): I’m afraid, you gave me a hard labor of love, Jeddak, to teach this prisoner how to behave. But since he has saved the daughter of Tardos Mors and his line of thousand Jeddaks from Helium, I just have to give it my very best.

    The effect of the dialogue might have been further enhanced by smart camera-work, showing short glimpses of Dejah’s growing irritation during his pauses and having Carter subsequently dwarved by moving the camera up and away from his face while he utters “Mam … my Princess” (they did great jump cuts in the fort, so they know how to do it).

    Such an introduction would have given their relationship not only a bit more sex-appeal, but even a quite different dynamic: the sensation of a huge distance that needs to be bridged, and more precisely from an uncomfortable position of disadvantage, since she’s a proud princess and a skeptic scientist, while he’s only an odd and ignorant prisoner of the Tharks who has yet a lot to learn (same as the audience).

    Being also a good start for a more comprehensible TRAILER, this little dialogue would have helped to relate the subject and the protagonists to the audience: schoolboys, American patriots, people who didn’t perform too well in school, timid guys, girls suffering from mindless macho advances, people who never heard of Burroughs’ Barsoom (definitely the majority) and many more.

    So the answer is yes: Disney should have tried harder to teach Barsoom, but make it fun with John Carter as a companion!

  • WHO WILL PLEDGE THEIR METAL TO MINE? WHO WILL FIGHT FOR BARSOOM?

    If you liked JOHN CARTER and want to see a sequel, please know that there is a Facebook group for the movie. This is a fan-created group whose numbers grow day by day. Show Disney that you care about and support John Carter of Mars. Log into your Facebook account and search for the group Take Me Back to Barsoom.

  • Seymour’s comments are predictable. However, Disney had to realize that they would be facing competiton from the THG. The two properties are markedly different, yet the comparison cannot be avoided. Although I don’t have an reliable breakdown of the actual costs for JC, I’d make the educated guess that costs for the long development period were tacked on to the budget. Of course, I doubt if anyone could be convinced that Disney actually spent 100 million dollars on marketing. Disney’s failure to properly exploit this property is probably a worthy subject for a book, if anyone actually had the heart to write it.

  • @Paladin I agree. The problem, I think, is that by making the break-even point so high, Disney predetermined that it had to be a mega-success in order to be just barely profitable. That setting of the bar so high has really been problematic not just in terms of the economics of the film — but the psychology of how film journalists and audiences are reacting to it has been affected too. A situation has been created where it has to deliver a “never before experienced/blow your mind” experience or it’s a failure. And that’s not right.

    At a more modest budget, everything shifts — the expectations, the economics, the psychology. At 150m and 50m marketing, a $40m opening weekend and 400m global box office would be considered great and a sequel would be a lock.

    Seymour doesn’t really address the marketing and that’s about 80% of way needs to be addressed. The film itself delivers well — 71% audience rating is plenty……..but if the marketing doesn’t deliver enough opening weekend audience to lay the foundation, then it doesn’t work.

  • I’m not living in a bubble because I think ‘John Carter’ is a really well-made movie. And just because this film didnt bring in the big bucks doesnt validate Seymours analysis of it being a lumbering oaf ‘of (past) its time’.

    The problem I have with Seymour is that he criticizes this movie like theres no place anymore for a science fiction period piece. Theres room in the film industry for every genre, even with today’s audience. A year ago who would have thought you could still make a silent movie?

    We cant forget that most people who actually see this film really like it. Seymour is confused because he seems to think theres something wrong with the movie itself, like it’s dated, when in fact its just a matter of horrible promotion.

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