Update on John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood

Other Stuff

As you can see from the picture, the first proof copies of John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood have arrived.  Next will be the arrival on Tuesday of Advance Reading Copies.  Advance copies will be going to, among others, Disney management for their comments and clarifications.  The goal is to get the details right in all respects, and while Disney has been reluctant to comment thus far, the hope is that upon seeing that it’s a substantive piece of work they may decided to allow a spokesperson to provide comments — we’re hoping for that.

Additionally, at the closing banquet of the ERB Centennial, ERB Inc. President Jim Sullos presented a copy to John Carter producer Jim Morris and there will be a similar process with Morris and the production team.

It’s important to understand that the goal of the book, as far as the portion of it that deals with “what really happened” is concerned, is simply to get it right. This is part of that process.

Also, I think it’s important to keep in mind the objective of the book — which is to make the case for not giving up on John Carter, and keep the conversation about continuing the film legacy of Barsoom and John Carter alive.  Treating all of the people involved in the story with respect is an important part of ensuring that it does what it’s intended to do.

As it stands now, our plan is to officially launch on September 12.  This will give us time to gather any last inputs from any party who wants to provide a clarification.   It could slip another week or so if there are significant or unexpected inputs, or if they come in at the last minute.

Following is the Author’s Preface — which incorporates elements of the previous Foreword and replaces that Foreword.

 

Preface

In 1912 struggling Chicago businessman Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote A PRINCESS OF MARS, the tale of John Carter, a Virginia cavalryman mysteriously transported to Mars where he would find adventure and meaning in life alongside Dejah Thoris, the incomparable Princess of Helium.  The story would lead to an eleven book series and become the wellspring of modern science fiction. Burroughs would go on to write TARZAN OF THE APES, and at the time of his death in 1950 was the best-selling author of the 20th century, with his books translated into 58 languages and outselling his contemporaries Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald combined.  His creation Tarzan was then, and remains today, the single most globally recognized literary character ever created.

In the 1960’s, countless minds of my generation encountered the extraordinary imagination of Edgar Rice Burroughs through the Ace and Ballantine paperback reprints that were published monthly, and which could be found in every drug store and corner newsstand throughout America.  Already half a century old, the books felt as current as if they had been written yesterday, and we collected them all, 40 cents a copy, and read them multiple times.

Discovering Burroughs was not a lonely or isolated pursuit — the fans were legion. Gradually a long list emerged of scientists and storytellers, politicians and spiritual leaders, all of whom said that it was Burroughs who had caught their imagination and inspired them in their youth, among them Ray Bradbury, Arthur Clarke, Carl Sagan, Ronald Reagan, Jane Goodall, Billy Graham, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron.

Burroughs’ writing was extraordinary vivid and detailed.  The planet that he created seemed so real that many of us felt almost as if we had lived there, or could live there–more than that, it induced a yearning to want be there and experience the world of our dreaming, and thus it was that for decades a movie of Barsoom played in our minds, while Hollywood attempted to create a real movie.  But Hollywood couldn’t quite pull it off — the imagination of Burroughs, for decade after decade after he wrote A Princess of Mars in the fall of 1911, continued to exceed Hollywood’s capacity to create.  Meanwhile some of our greatest film-makers made liberal use of scenes, images, and ideas from Burroughs’ Barsoom: Star Wars and Avatar in particular drew heavily upon Burroughs, mining it for creative inspiration.

But they were not the original, and we still yearned for that.

Then in 2008 Disney announced that Andrew Stanton, Director of Wall-E and Finding Nemo, would be directing a film version of A Princess of Mars and in January 2010 filming began — and with the knowledge that filming had begun, all of those who had been waiting for decades through one false alarm after another, knew that at long last this cherished source-work of imaginative fiction would finally make it to the screen. We owed Stanton and Disney a deep debt of gratitude for bringing a film such as this to the screen, and to the world.

But then the dream slowly, and inexorably, turned to a nightmare.

Everyone who has followed Disney’s John Carter now knows the basic outline of what happened.  The film cost at least $250M to make and $100M to market; it opened poorly in the US, better overseas, and 10 days into the theatrical run Disney announced it was taking a $200M write-down due to its high cost, which meant that even with $280M in global box office gross, it was still a financial failure.  John Carter was declared to be a failed enterprise. It was game over.

Fans, meanwhile, rallied to support the continuation of the series, and the film began to grow a steadfast and persistent cult following.  While Disney has not officially ruled out a sequel nor returned the rights to the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate, it is generally considered to be settled knowledge in “the industry” that Disney has no intention of continuing the series.

Against this background, John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood says “Not so fast!” and attempts to achieve an in-depth understanding of what really happened with a view toward keeping open the question of whether or not continuation of the series is justified.  It asks:

1) What is the true value of the literary property? What was it about Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1912 story that caused it to be so wildly popular and influential in the first place?  Why, exactly, did scientists and storytellers from Carl Sagan to Ray Bradbury to George Lucas to James Cameron find inspiration in the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs?  Why has it been in print continuously for 100 years?   What was his particular genius?  And have the film adaptations and borrowings from Burroughs fully harvested the value the old master presents, or is there untapped value there?

2) What is the full story of what went wrong with the release of John Carter? It is generally acknowledged that the marketing was ineffective — what, exactly, happened with the marketing?  Why was it not only ineffective, but inactive in ways that are possible to document?  How much of an impact did this have on the final performance?  How much of a difference would effective marketing make?

3) John Carter earned close to $300M — a figure which, for example, earned fellow sci-fi adventure Prometheus ($309M Global Gross) a sequel.  The difference is the high cost of production for John Carter. How did such a high cost of production come about?  Would sequels necessarily cost as much?

4) A fan movement has grown up supporting the continuation of the John Carter series.  What is the actual relevance, if any, of the fan movement? In the age of social media, what does the presence of such a movement mean to any possible sequel or reboot by Disney or another studio.

5)Given all factors, is there a bona fide business case for continuation of the series?  How would it alter the equation if cost savings could be achieved by producing films 2 and 3 concurrently?  What are the prospects of bringing in foreign coproduction partners from China and/or Russia — the two largest overseas markets where, in both cases, John Carter was a success?  What other strategies could be employed to reduce risk for Disney and increase the likelihood of success?

 

To make the case that I have set out to make requires that I provide a detailed, critical look at all aspects of the film enterprise including the development, production, and the marketing campaign.  This is not an exercise in simply finding fault and casting blame.  The purpose is to show how the certain mistakes and assumptions, compounded by other mistakes and assumptions, created a “perfect storm” of errors that resulted in a film whose box office performance
fell vastly short of its potential.  Making a final judgment as to sequels in a  circumstance like that needs to proceed from a clear understanding of what went wrong, and how it might be corrected, in order to arrive at valid conclusions about the worth of the film asset that has been created, and the potential for a series.

In documenting damaging mistakes, inexplicable lapses in marketing activity, and the like, I have confined myself almost entirely to verifiable data  with attribution that can be accessed via footnotes that have been provided, or in some cases through the use of social media and marketing research software that is readily available.  I have provided full attribution from articles and public and private interviews.  In the case of some private interviews which comprise a small percentage of the overall content, I agreed to respect the privacy requirements from interviewees who are under current and ongoing non-disclosure agreements, principally with the Walt Disney Studios.  There are a relatively small number of occasions where attribution has not been possible;  recognizing the importance of providing credible, verifiable sourcing, I have minimized the reliance on such non-attributable information.

My hope is that the “takeaway” of a reasonably openminded reader after reading this book will be a) that the underlying literary property truly is a treasure that has great value left in it;  b) that correctable mistakes in the marketing of John Carter plus the presence now of a motivated fan base means that second and third films can reasonably be projected to do substantially better in their theatrical runs than the first film did; and c) that with smart, savvy efficiencies in production and the use foreign financing/coproduction options from territories where the film did well, a business case for successful continuation can be made.

Finally, I acknowledge and embrace the fact that this is personal for me.  The imagination and storytelling genius of Edgar Rice Burroughs inspired me in countless ways in my youth.  It gave me the confidence to  pursue a life that has had its share of adventures and misadventures. first in service to my country, and later in pursuit of dreams that I believed in.   I have had failures and made more than my share of mistakes, but it was Burroughs who taught me to give my all to things that I believe in, and my life has been richer for it.  It was the old who taught me to believe in the power and possibility of the human spirit.  I and others of like mind “pledge our metal” to his.  If you think we’ll give up easily, consider the spirit of John Carter as it comes through in this passage:

“I knew though that it was but a question of minutes before their greater numbers would wear me down, or get around my guard. I must go down eventually to certain death before them. I shuddered at the thought of it, dying thus in this terrible place where no word of my end ever could reach my Dejah Thoris. …..

Then my old-time spirit reasserted itself. The fighting blood of my Virginian sires coursed hot through my veins. The fierce blood lust and the joy of battle surged over me. The fighting smile that has brought consternation to a thousand foemen touched my lips. I put the thought of death out of my mind, and fell upon my antagonists ……”

Or, in the words of  Andrew Stanton’s John Carter:

“Find a cause… fall in love… write a book.”

 

28 comments

  • Roland Trenary wrote:

    “Here’s a couple notes:
    4th paragraph: “extraordinary” should be: “extraordinarily”
    Also, “a yearning to want to be there” seems redundant. How about: “a yearning to be there”
    6th paragraph: delete “with the knowledge that filming had begun” and also the coma between “another, knew””

    Fixed ’em. Thanks!

  • MCR you are a gentleman and I know you are certainly not stupid nor would I think you are childish. I also not now, nor have I ever, asked you to be grateful to Andrew Satan-ton. I am not even asking you to like the film. Enjoyment of a movie is subjective, I respect and defend your right to not like it. And, I extend that to you too Crusty.

    I also defend your right to never watch this movie version ever again. I defend your right, if you are ever in the position to finance a movie, to reject Andrew as your director.

    I and most of the comments that I read here are not saying that A.S. is the greatest thing since Philadelphia cream cheese or that the movie is so great and you have to love it.

    You are coming to a site that originated with the movie and is populated by people that pretty much enjoyed it for the most part. We talk about events surrounding it, we talk about parts we liked and didn’t like, some made campaigns to get a sequel to a movie they liked. Personally, I’m okay enough with this version to let it be the origin story, but I would like a different, writer, director and probably actor to bring Gods to life more in keeping with the direction you would like to have seen this one go in.

    A simple “don’t forget A.S.’s part in this” to Michael would haven been enough, we know where you are coming from and that is fine, but the whole repeat of the full length screed is not necessary anymore, unless your real goal is to change our opinions, which is not being so respectful of our right to have our opinions.

  • Bob Page wrote:
    “Most of us here are well aware that it is not a perfect translation of the book that we loved, but it still was enjoyable to us on several levels.”

    I’m not sure that is the case Bob. The way most people act on here and elsewhere anytime I or one of the other contrarians “bash” this movie-or criticize Stanton-they act like we’re bad mouthing the greatest movie ever made. Take a look at the comments. Only a few of them have ever admitted that they thought there was problems with this film. Instead it’s a constant stream of pretending that Stanton did no wrong, that he is the infallible “genius” that people kept building up before the film came out.

    “We are all heatbroken that this movie that we waited for most of our lives has recieved the ignonimous fate that has befallen it. ”

    And which fate is that? That it bombed at the box office or that Stanton didn’t deliver a perfect film?

    “You are not going to change a damn thing in the world by constantly trashing a horse that is already down and taking away the enjoyment that we are getting from the movie. You are way beyond just normal discourse on this movie, you are obsessive in your hatred of AS.”

    You know something you’re right. I’m not going to change anything. No matter how much I rail it’s not going to change your opinion or the opinions of the Stanton worshippers. But you want to know why I don’t like him. He fed us a line of BULLS—-. Don’t tell me you’re a fan and spend every freaking interview belittling or downright badmouthing the author. Don’t pretend you’re a fan when you are not. Don’t act all high and mighty and that everyone should bow before you as if you’re General Zod or God’s gift to the director’s chair. Along with now making John Carter of Mars associated with a huge bomb-and don’t pretend that the media or the general public’s opinion about this is going to change anytime soon-he took a chance, an opportunity to make a great movie and whizzed it down his leg because he was arrogant. He had no respect for anyone. Now if this sounds like someone who is pissed well it is. I am pissed, pissed that this film has done more to damage JCOM and ERB’s reputation than even the worst Tarzan film could, pissed that this man-this so-called fan-decided he was better than the original author, pissed that so damn many people keep defending him despite the fact that he doesn’t care what you or I or anyone thinks or feels, pissed that the worst movie studio on the planet blew it.

    OK I just ranted. Respond to it. Tell me I’m being childish. Or that I’m just stupid. Just don’t tell me that I should be grateful to Stanton or Disney for screwing up.

  • I’m not “fluffing” Mr. Stanton in my comment. I am acutely aware of where he went wrong in all of this, get this I love the f’ing books. They sit right here on my bookshelf and I have taken them out many times and re read them just for the enjoyment of it. You know what, they are still there for me to read exactly as ERB wrote them.

    I am on the record here as saying that I really disliked some of the things that Stanton did. I really didn’t like the Therns being so revealed here and his interpretation of their “scheme” and I wrote several comments on how Stanton tried too hard to emulate Lucas instead of visualizing what ERB described. I know this. Most people commenting here and definitely Michael, know this.

    What I was commenting on is the constant saying of the same tired things over and over again. And the vitriol with which it is delivered. Give it a rest.

    AND I ask again, what good do you do, or what satisfaction do you get, what are you going to change, by beating this downed horse further into the ground and demeaning what enjoyment that those of us are getting from the movie, despite it’s faults.

  • Some have proposed that a 150,000,000 million dollar sequel is feasible.
    I fear that once again I would be robbed of an air battle involving thousands of ships.

    Nah…..trade out Thark time for air battles — you can have the air battles, they’re not that hard compared to Thark animation.

  • Dear Mr. Dotar Sojat.
    You are correct about the runaway budget.
    Perhaps what I shoud have said was that the 250,000,000 million spent did not look like 250,000,000 spent. – Particularly the ending.

    Some have proposed that a 150,000,000 million dollar sequel is feasible.
    I fear that once again I would be robbed of an air battle involving thousands of ships.

  • Dear Mr. Bob Page

    Awesome idea.
    Mr. Stanton can film the crusty/mcr motel room copulation and call it “Gods of Mars”.
    I’m sure it will earn as much money at the box office as APOM did.
    I’m sure some will claim that it bears as much resemblence to it’s respective
    book as what APOM did to it’s book. – (I’m guessing I would’nt).

    We will flip a coin to see who plays the role of JC and who gets to put on a wig and a skimpy outfit and be the “princess”.

    I can see the credits rolling and I am sure Stanton will give you credit for your brainstorm.

    The credit will say,
    Bob Page – Chief writer and also chief “fluffer”.

  • From what I recollect Stanton bragged in interviews about how he clubbed Disney with his clout and then got what he wanted. – An APOM movie. He got exactly what he wanted, including a runaway budget.

    Some of this is true — Stanton did talk about his clout. But there was no “runaway budget” as that term is usually used. The budget was set in pre-production, Disney approved it, and there was therefore nothing “runaway” about it. Someone in the equation should have tried harder to keep it down — but when you think about it, here’s a guy whose previous film did $868M and $590M and so to him, and his team, whether it was 200 or 250 didn’t seem to matter as much as being able to really make the right movie would matter. They would argue that handcuffing them budget wise introduces a whole new level of risk.

    If I recollect correctly Stanton stated that he had influence and control regarding
    marketing strategy. – Specifically vague trailers.

    Influence yes, control — more on the first trailer than on anything thereafter. “You only get one chance for a first impression” and he worked hard to push Disney to give him a first trailer that he liked. But it was never a matter of complete control ….he did influence the overall campaign to be more vague than it might otherwise have been.

    If your going to blame marketing, blame Stanton as well because he had a hand in it.

    That is dealt with in the book.

    What would have happened if APOM had been a commercial success? Stanton would have been lauded as a creative genius, nothing mentioned about
    how a brilliant marketing campaign saved a mediocre movie from disaster.

    Nobody would be calling him a creative genius with a 52% RT score. That said, if it hadn’t been for the poisonous atmosphere, that number might have been more like 70% …. at least I think the weirdly negative vibe accounted for that much negativity from critics. It’s speculative, though. No one knows, or can know.

    Efforts directed at Disnet to get a second movie is a complete waste of time.
    No exec will back it because that is career suicide.

    And Lasseter has a touch of death wish about him. No one else, though. Just him.

    I whould recommend an agenda that consists of running away from Disney as far as possible and a completwe REBOOT.

    It’s coming to that.

  • While I really don’t wish anyone to become Bantha fodder, you and Crusty should get a room and you can take turns being Andrew Satan-ton and the other guy can f— him in the a—. We get it, we got it months ago. Michael gets it. I’m sure his book is fair and balanced in the truth of it.

    He didn’t follow the book chapter and verse, so it is shite.

    Ms. Useless P. Carter, you are starting to sound like a drunk parrot.

    Most of us here are well aware that it is not a perfect translation of the book that we loved, but it still was enjoyable to us on several levels. We are all heatbroken that this movie that we waited for most of our lives has recieved the ignonimous fate that has befallen it.

    You are not going to change a damn thing in the world by constantly trashing a horse that is already down and taking away the enjoyment that we are getting from the movie. You are way beyond just normal discourse on this movie, you are obsessive in your hatred of AS.

  • “Efforts directed at Disnet to get a second movie are a complete waste of time.
    No exec will back it because that is career suicide.”

    The efforts may or may not be a waste of time. There is always the chance an executive high up in the company could get behind a sequel. For example, if Iger leaves as early as next year, and Alan Horn and John Lasseter can come to an agreement, a sequel could be just a year or two away from going into production.

    “I would recommend an agenda that consists of running away from Disney as far as possible and a complete REBOOT.”

    If Disney ever makes it explicitly clear that they won’t be making a sequel, you can bet the reboot conversation will heat up. The question, in that case, would be if Disney would sit on the rights until they lapse back to the estate, or if an interested third party would be willing to buy the rights off of Disney immediately. If it comes down to a reboot, I hope for the latter scenario, as that would get us back to Barsoom sooner.

  • Crustbucket I agree with most of what you wrote except for one thing. Andrew Stanton didn’t make A Princess of Mars movie nor a John Carter of Mars movie. That would have involved reading the book-which he clearly never has and had no intention of doing so-and being faithful, which was something Stanton couldn’t or wouldn’t do. He made his John Carter which bore zero resemblance to either APOM or even the characters Burroughs created. In fact the film should have been called Whiny Kitsch since that’s all Stanton delivered.

  • From what I recollect Stanton bragged in interviews about how he clubbed Disney with his clout and then got what he wanted. – An APOM movie. He got exactly what he wanted, including a runaway budget.

    Without Stanton’s initiative and creative control APOM would never have been created.

    Due to this I believe that ultimately a large percentage of the blame should be layed upon Stanton’s shoulders. At least 50% if not more.

    If I recollect correctly Stanton stated that he had influence and control regarding
    marketing strategy. – Specifically vague trailers.

    If your going to blame marketing, blame Stanton as well because he had a hand in it.

    What would have happened if APOM had been a commercial success?

    I speculate that Stanton would have given countless interviews touting
    what a creative genius he was and how he turned a flawed classic into a
    modern three part story arc with a modern day hesitant hero with a modern day charactor arc that modern day audiences could ohhh and ahhh to.

    Headlines would read, “Modern day audiences gobble up modern day hollywood injected trope”

    Stanton would have been lauded as a creative genius, nothing mentioned about
    how a brilliant marketing campaign saved a mediocre movie from disaster.

    Furthermore ….

    Efforts directed at Disnet to get a second movie is a complete waste of time.
    No exec will back it because that is career suicide.

    I whould recommend an agenda that consists of running away from Disney as far as possible and a completwe REBOOT.

  • I enjoyed your preface.
    “My hope is that the “takeaway” of a reasonably openminded reader after reading this book will be . . . . . . “after reading” seems redundant.

    Also, I hope you covered the mindless attacks of the critics in your book. Did you conceive of a way to counter their renewed attacks if there is ever a sequel announced. Can you imagine the it?!! They will all jump on it immediately and try to blot out any chance of success. They love to see big things fail. That’s the kind of people they are.
    ken

  • “I would hope a banth eats you, but your sour complaints would turn it’s stomach.”

    Yeah I guess Jeff coming from someone who has swallowed enough of Stanton’s bull crap you would know about that wouldn’t you? Hope the Pepto held up.

  • MCR – ” But I’ll agree to disagree on this just to keep the peace.”

    Ha. Ha ha ha. MCR, you ruin everywhere I go. I would hope a banth eats you, but your sour complaints would turn it’s stomach.

  • Well Dotar you’re cherry picking too. All I did was pick films that either were inspired by John Carter (Avatar, Star Wars), sci-fi or fantasy films and even Indy 4 since Stanton sold this on his “promise” of Indiana Jones on Mars (a series he apparently never saw since Indy didn’t mope or whine) and it showed that they had better rankings than John Carter. But I’ll agree to disagree on this just to keep the peace.

  • MCR you’re cherry picking, come on. Go to Box Office Mojo, click on John Carter, then click on Similar movies, and then do the same analysis on the similar movies that did $150M domestic or more. You’ll see a lot of them come in the same range or lower. Your list isn’t representative. 300 was 59%, most of the POTC movies were below 50%, Tron Legacy 50%, Clash of the Titans 28%, ……. let’s just agree to disagree.

  • If there is any way to change the format/font of the title so the words aren’t running into each other (JOHNCARTERANDTHE)…it might make it clearer and easier to read.

    Design geniuses are working on it as we speak……;-)

  • If there is any way to change the format/font of the title so the words aren’t running into each other (JOHNCARTERANDTHE)…it might make it clearer and easier to read.

  • Very well written, Michael! Sets the stage nicely.

    There are only a couple little proofreading things here and there, several already pointed out by others, so I won’t go into those. One sentence seems to be missing a word – “It was the old who taught me to believe in the power and possibility of the human spirit.” Do you mean “the old” in general, as in your elders, or is there a missing word?

    Can’t wait for the book!

  • Dotar Sojat wrote:
    “You are an incredible bulldog, aren’t you?”

    Well it’s better than being a sheepdog standing in the rain 🙂

    “The film has too high a cinema-score rating and too high a critics rating (yes, 52% is too high) to qualify as “utter butchery” and you know that as well as I do.”

    Well first off 52 percent is not that high. I actually went to Rotten Tomatoes and just picked a few films at random. Here’s there ratings:

    Avatar 83

    Star Trek 95

    Iron Man 94

    Iron Man 2 74

    District 9 91

    Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 79

    HP Part 2 96

    Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith 80

    Moon 89

    Serenity 82

    Thor 77

    Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 77

    Yep even the worst Indy film has a better rating than John Carter. And that was in most people’s minds utter butchery of that series. So yeah 52 percent does show that Stanton did butcher it to the point where critics found it incomprehensible and not as well made as you and the film’s defenders think it is.

    “and unwilling to be even a little bit flexible in allowing film-makers to do what they do, which is change things”

    That depends on whether or not the changes help tell the story. What does Moving Zodanga, Shape Shifter Shang or Mrs. Useless P. Carter add to the story? How do they help tell the story? The problem isn’t making changes-its making the bad changes Stanton did. I’m not inflexible but these don’t cut it. And its not because I’m stuck on it being a 100 percent faithful A Princess of Mars movie. But hitting the .5 percent rating Stanton did isn’t good either.

    “You know — remember when we did a poll here about how much percentage blame to hand out to the various parties–Stanton, Ross, Carney, etc. I recall you were reasonable in your assessment at that time — yet now you seem to be reversing yourself and demanding that we pout all the blame on Stanton. ”

    No I gave Stanton 40 percent if I remember at the time and everyone else 20. So I did place a huge part of the blame on him. As for putting all of it-look I agree Carney and Ross blew it. But they weren’t the ones being inflexible about casting, his vision and being unable to be respectful of the source material. I know the latter doesn’t matter much to many but delivering the cliched mess Stanton did obviously didn’t work either. I feel that if were handing out blame he deserves what he gets since he was the one who deluded himself into believing he was a fan of John Carter of Mars; that he was the right person despite his lack of live action experience to make it and his arrogant attidue that everyone would accept it no matter what. Marketing blunders is one thing. A director’s ego running rampant is another.

  • MCR wrote:

    Dotar Sojat wrote:
    “That said — I doubt I’m going to satisfy you because in the end, the film is good enough to have succeeded.” Was it? I mean if it was wouldn’t word of mouth or the critical response been better? I mean I know this book won’t really take Stanton to task for his mistakes and utter butchery but still that seems to stick with the bad marketing defense. If the film was good it should have done better than it ultimately did. And that has to do with the quality of the film, not the marketing.

    You are an incredible bulldog, aren’t you? Just won’t let go of something. Look, “utter butchery” is a complete over-the-top statement that really undercuts any attempt you make to present a cogent argument for your position. The film has too high a cinema-score rating and too high a critics rating (yes, 52% is too high) to qualify as “utter butchery” and you know that as well as I do. It’s utter butchery to you because you’re hopelessly fixated on the original and unwilling to be even a little bit flexible in allowing film-makers to do what they do, which is change things. How many Tarzan movies have been made that follow the book closely at all or get the character right? The first 20 minutes of Greystoke and then what? That’s out of 70 odd movies. You’re unrealistic in your expectations both of the movie and of what you think I might be willing to do in a book whose purpose is what it is.

    So, like I said, I won’t be able to make you happy. You know — remember when we did a poll here about how much percentage blame to hand out to the various parties–Stanton, Ross, Carney, etc. I recall you were reasonable in your assessment at that time — yet now you seem to be reversing yourself and demanding that we pout all the blame on Stanton.

    “If the film was good it should have done better than it ultimately did” can be said of any film. The point is, the business of film is based on film succeeding at some point below a “grand slam home run” by the director. It is not supposed to be a situation where the marketing is terrible but the director saves it by hitting it out of the park. Marketing has a role; the film has a role. In this case marketing failed utterly and the film wasn’t good enough to compensate for that. Could it have? Yes – with a 90% audience and critics rating like he got with WallE and Nemo, Stanton could have saved it. But it’s not fair to say that just because he didn’t acheive that extraordinary level of success with his part of it, it should be all or even primarily on his shoulders. You’re not going to convince me of that because that’s not how the film business works.

  • Dotar Sojat wrote:
    “That said — I doubt I’m going to satisfy you because in the end, the film is good enough to have succeeded.”

    Was it? I mean if it was wouldn’t word of mouth or the critical response been better? I mean I know this book won’t really take Stanton to task for his mistakes and utter butchery but still that seems to stick with the bad marketing defense. If the film was good it should have done better than it ultimately did. And that has to do with the quality of the film, not the marketing.

    Beyond that thanks for at least taking suggestions.

  • MCR wrote:

    However reading it I take away once again the standard “It’s all the marketing” defense for John Carter failing. Now maybe its dealt with in the book but if this is any indication you’re letting Stanton-despite his massive ego, lack of respect for ERB and his reluctance to ever admit a mistake, not to mention his overspending and misguided “We can make it like Pixar” approach-off the hook for the film’s problems. I hope I’m wrong but that’s how the preface reads.

    Fair point — the issue is with the preface, not the book — at least that’s what I think. When I’ve been summarizing the argument in presentations and so on, I’ve been including a bullet point that didn’t make it into this version of the preface, but will be there in the updated version. It goes more or less like this: “What decisions were made in the development of the screenplay and production of the film that caused damage to it in the marketplace?” In the preface, this would come between items 2 and 3, before the marketing.

    That said — I doubt I’m going to satisfy you because in the end, the film is good enough to have succeeded. Could it have been more to your liking, or mine? Of course. But the film is a respectable effort — better than that, when you consider that it has forged the emotional connection it has with fans who are touched by it in ways that did not happen with films like Prince of Persia, for example. Stanton gave it a legitimate all-out effort — he didn’t mail in his effort. Disney, on the other hand, conducted what is widely accepted by people on both sides of the “was the film any good” argument as among the worst, if not the worst, campaigns in cinema history. Moreover, the book points out in considerable verifiable detail and documented, indisputable lack of effort by Disney in key areas of promotion.

    But anyway — your point is well taken and in the final editing before release I’ll be adding that beat to the preface. Thanks for pointing it out.

  • The preface is pretty nice and hearing your personal connection to ERB is touching and honest.

    However reading it I take away once again the standard “It’s all the marketing” defense for John Carter failing. Now maybe its dealt with in the book but if this is any indication you’re letting Stanton-despite his massive ego, lack of respect for ERB and his reluctance to ever admit a mistake, not to mention his overspending and misguided “We can make it like Pixar” approach-off the hook for the film’s problems. I hope I’m wrong but that’s how the preface reads.

    Also I wouldnt’ hold my breath for any response from Disney. You’ll probably get one of those form letters.

  • Very touching preface!

    (“what does the presence of such a movement mean to any possible sequel or reboot by Disney or another studio.” Should it finish with a “?”?)

    (Should there be a comma between misadventures and first?)

  • Michael,
    Nice!
    Here’s a couple notes:
    4th paragraph: “extraordinary” should be: “extraordinarily”
    Also, “a yearning to want to be there” seems redundant. How about: “a yearning to be there”
    6th paragraph: delete “with the knowledge that filming had begun” and also the coma between “another, knew”

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