Help me solve the mystery of the sudden sustained surge of new members to the John Carter sequel Facebook Group

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So help me figure this out.  The John Carter Facebook Group “Take me back to Barsoom! I want John Carter to have a sequel!” has experienced a strange surge of new members over the last three days.  The “surge” has gone from about 10 new members a day before it started — to 1oo new members each of the past few days.  There have been 40 in the last hour alone.  We are trying over there to figure out what’s going on.  Many are coming from overseas — Pakistan,  India, Brazil, Netherlands, Russia, Lithuania, and Portugal – and that’s just in the last hour.  There are also many young members — teens.

Any theories?

Our theories are:

1. The official John Carter page on Facebook now has a new app which makes it so that when you go there and look at the page, it checks your friends and any friends who have “liked” the page are displayed, and posts from friends about John Carter are displayed.  This is very cool — and many of the posts that are displayed are from members of the group, so the group URL is getting some display on the main John Carter official page, for the first time.

2. Early release: We confirmed that at least in one territory (Tanzania of all places) Disney seems to have released the DVD early.  At least the guy swore it was not a bootleg copy, and if I were Disney, I would release it early in high piracy countries.  But we haven’t confirmed anywhere else.

3.  A lot of people are saying they saw it and googled John Carter 2 or John Carter sequel and the group, and its associated sites, have that search result page one pretty well nailed.

Still… not sure.  Wonder if anyone has any theories, or ways of finding out.  We are getting some answers from the people themselves, but they trickle in slowly (the answers).

13 comments

  • Bob Page –

    I’ve taken the name of that guy on “Have gun, will travel”? (Richard Boone, right?) I knew the dictionary meaning of the word, but would you believe it, I never made the connection. Good job, man – you’ve got me laughin’ here.

  • Dotar –

    I like your adjustment on the book blurb. Keeps the site looking great and buys time. I only pointed it out to you because I saw where you had a major up-tick in new visitors, and what was written there could be completely misinterpreted.

    This is what we were discussing earlier – you get so close to the material, your brain just naturally starts filling in the blanks and it becomes harder to read your own words like a first-time viewer. It’s an easy trap, though, because you know what you mean already. Not that I’ve noticed you have this problem, but it’s always been my biggest pitfall.

    You still have plenty of time to figure out what actually goes onto the real book. But I’m all in favor of the original title HvsM (…it even looks good abbreviated). It caught me off-guard, though, how twisted its meaning could become if the subtitle is wrong. So, like you say, push to the end, then take a deep breath, and don’t rush on the subtitle, because it needs to be good. [No insipidity, right?]

  • Have to agree with ” Have Gun, Will Travel ” Paladin, the bottom text on the banner kind of implies that the movie went wrong, and I know, that you know, that is not really what actually happened here.

    There is also a slight psychological perception to the order of the vs components. VS is actually neutral, not taking sides, but the perception is that the first one is the defender and the second one is the attacker. But, I am torn on this, your book is a serious dissection of Hollywood and the studio’s creative and marketing strategies in regards to this film and you want to “play” to that audience, but it is also about ERB and the property and the many fans of the books and now the film. So, Mars vs Hollywood or Hollywood vs Mars ?

    John Carter (of Mars) : When a Good Film is Handled Badly
    John Carter (of Mars) : Ambushed on the Way to the Cineplex
    John Carter (of Mars) : The Inside Story of what Really Happened

    Totally off Topic:
    Anyone with a half way decent HD set up at home, knows that their home picture is sharper and more vivid than what we are getting in theaters now. I have SO been getting off on the air ships on my recent viewings. Saw it 4 times in the theater, but at home I have noticed that the detail of the flying ships wings are individual “anti-gravity” cells, that each rise and fall individually to affect how much lift the ship is getting. When they want to turn, they adjust one wings cells and the sudden drag due to the affect of gravity on that side, causes the ship to dip and arc in that direction. They literally glisten in the sunlight as they move. Very cool. Also check out the flags ( City Pennants ) on the ships that are furiously billowing and flapping in the air stream as they are flying.

  • Paladin said

    It’s that big picture of your book, which to unknowing eyes looks every bit like a book tearing into the movie.

    Whoa, that’s a first. Nobody said that. Need to do some focus group stuff on that and see — obviously don’t want that. In the meantime, it’s a banner now with a quote underneath it that clarifies……..thanks for the thoughts. Don’t be hesitant to criticize……you know how to do it in the right way so it’s fine. 😉

  • Dotar –

    If you have a 20% uptick in folks coming to this website, you should look at the first thing anyone sees when they come here: It’s that big picture of your book, which to unknowing eyes looks every bit like a book tearing into the movie.

    To a brand new viewer, you call the movie a “strange case”, an expensive “misfire” which undoes “ERB’s treasured pulp classic.” After someone reads that, then the book title starts looking like Hollywood is the movie JC versus Mars by ERB.

    I’m not criticizing or even commenting on what you want on the book jacket for publication, I’m simply pointing out what a new person sees who comes to this website right now.

  • Unfortunately it is probably due to the torrent of the film being released a few days ago.

    Yup. I think that’s the most likely explanation. A few people have owned up to watching the torrent……others haven’t. But that’s most likely what’s happening. Well, if this is a preview of what will happen when the DVD comes out — it’s encouraging at least in terms of finding new members for the group.

    One thing we’re learning is that people who just randomly watch the torrent don’t know the whole backstory about it being a “flop of the century” , etc …. and they get to the end, see JC say “Barsoom” and go — wow, is there a sequel? So that’s kind of cool. These people are less jaded and haven’t been paying attention to every movie journalist’s negative verbiage……

    Also, we’ve seen an uptick in traffic here …. not as much as the new members to the site, but definitely a noticeable increate — maybe 20% since last Thursday.

  • Unfortunately it is probably due to the torrent of the film being released a few days ago.

  • Unfortunately, I think it is due to the torrent of the movie being released a few days ago & therefore more people are watching the movie. Me personally, I am waiting a little longer than the release date for the actual Bluray – I’ve asked for it as a Father’s Day gift this year.

  • Joe — if you can find that article, please send me the link. I would LOVE to be able to report that.

  • My first guess would be that there are a lot more people interested in a John Carter sequel than was previously believed, though whether Disney Studios will see it as the tip of the proverbial iceberg, or just a case of a few more fans finally making their presence known is anybody’s guess. It will be interesting to see if, and how much, interest the DVD sales brings in. I read somewhere that the “John Carter” 4 disc set was one of the largest pre-orders that they had ever had.

  • when people comment under new posts that the John Carter Fan Page posts, “go join this group” and everyone will see that comment.

  • HRH wrote
    “Why, because it was paired with “The Avengers” at the drive-in, of course!”

    I think that’s part of it — but the surge didn’t begin when the pairing began – that was 3 weekends ago, and it only began in the last couple of days.

    Still scratching my head slightly.

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