Deadline Hollywood Article on Disney’s $200m Bomb announcement is worth reading for the comments alone
Deadline Hollywood has been no particular friend of John Carter, as anyone who has been following the movie knows. That aid, it’s a very popular site with lots of commenting going on , and the comment to the following article are very interesting and give a sense as to just how unusual it was for Disney to move so quickly to brand John Carter as “Flop of the Century”.
The article is entitled: Disney Analysts Unshaken by $200m Writedown for John Carter and you can read the article here. Meanwhile, following are the first few comments, along with a link to the comment thread where you can read all the comments.
If Nikki wants a story she should try to figure out why Disney is so quick to declare this film a bomb. Usually (and I’m sure she knows this better than anyone) a studio will try to put whatever spin they can on a film – especially when there is positive spin to be had. The film is #1 internationally and has 50% of the critics saying it’s a good film and yelling at the other 50% of the critics that “didn’t seem to get it”.
Something smells wrong here and I can’t put my finger on why Disney wanted to put negative spin on a film. Did they have a multi-picture deal with Stanton they want to go away? Did they purposely want stock to drop for some reason?
This sure seems like it’s a story right up DH’s alley…
Comment by SteveG — Tuesday March 20, 2012 @ 10:50am EDT REPLY TO THIS POST
Agree with everything you said. This whole thing feels strange. Is it to embarass the former regime at Disney??? Would they take it this far.
Film can still do very well worldwide, like “Prince Of Persia,” I don’t understand the instant “Its a flop” reports… Especially this early???
Comment by Agree…. agree… — Tuesday March 20, 2012 @ 11:52am EDT REPLY TO THIS POST
They released the statement declaring it a massive failure so that it’s not surprising when they fire somebody important next week.
Comment by Anon — Tuesday March 20, 2012 @ 12:56pm EDT REPLY TO THIS POST
The SEC should investigate to determine if insiders were short selling shares in their own company. By labeling the film a flop those insiders make money if the stock price drops but it has not dropped which means they might be screwed twice they haven’t made money on their short sale and they could be investigated for other violations. How ironic would it be if this turns out to be true?
Comment by Anonymous — Tuesday March 20, 2012 @ 1:31pm EDT REPLY TO THIS POST
The reason they’re not worried. One word. Pixar. They have a summer that will make John Carter’s failure less impactful.
They should seriously think about changing the title to “John Carter of Mars” and add some esteem to the story by telling folks it’s from Edgar Rice Burroughs when they release it on dvd. What to they have to lose at this point? Try SOMETHING Disney!
Comment by JJ — Tuesday March 20, 2012 @ 11:03am EDT REPLY TO THIS POST
To be honest, I have lost faith in Pixar animation. Do not assume the Pixar brand alone will restore equilibrium to the losses of John Carter.
Cars 2 was a deplorable movie that should never have been made.
Andrew Stanton’s decisions for the 200 million dollar fiasco proves he is not the movie god people are hyping him up as being.
John Lasseter’s strategies to save Disney Animation and restore hand-drawn animation and old-fashioned storytelling have greatly disappointed; (Some say he FAILED).
On top of that, I am puzzled by the plot/story to Brave, judging by the trailer, even more so than John Carter.
So no, Pixar is not the automatic Savior.
Comment by ken — Wednesday March 21, 2012 @ 1:55pm EDT REPLY TO THIS POST
John Carter deserved better reception than this. It is actually a very good movie and I will not hesitate purchasing the Blu-Ray when released. Unfortunately, John Carter will probably go the way of “I Am Number Four”. I Am Number Four was a fantastic movie based upon the book plus a second book in the series “The Power of Six” has already been released. Since, I Am Number Four, did not do very well at the box office, the second novel may never be filmed. I Am Number Four was one of the best movies released in 2011.
John Carter was poised to a have series of potential movies released since Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote (11) novels in the Mars series. Of course, since John Carter, did not do very well at the US box office compared to its production cost, one would assume it is a certainty that Disney will not make a sequel.
I wonder if the Disney brand is not what hurt this movie to begin with. Disney makes movies that generally appeal to families and children but somehow this movie was supposed to appeal to those action oriented single 18 to 30 year olds as well. With a Disney brand on it, I wonder if those single 18 to 30 year olds, didn’t think the movie would be a serious action adventure sci-fi movie. So Disney lost a good chunk of that age group possibly. Then since it was an action movie, many families did not take there children to this movie.
Somehow, Disney lost its core audience and did not bring in the sci-fi action adventure audience as well. The “love story” was not even marketed at all in the trailers so there you lost any interest from girls and women. I thoroughly enjoyed John Carter. Sadly, John Carter, may ultimately go down as a box office failure when it deserved much better. Ultimately, this was a marketing failure because the movie, overall, delivers exactly what it was supposed to.
Comment by Les — Tuesday March 20, 2012 @ 11:24am EDT REPLY TO THIS POST