Arms, Tusks, and Body suits — How to Create Tharks without CGI by Tim Bartholomew

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The industrious Tim Bartholomew has put up another interesting post, this one about the eternal challenge that will face any future John Carter movies — how to cut cost so as to get the budget in alignment with the size of the market.   Tim correctly notes that animating the Tharks, Pixar style, and integrating them with the live actor was the main reason the film’s budget went so high.  So he has done some research into other alternatives.

One additional “alternative” is the fact that subsequent stories don’t, for the most part, have as much  Thark content as Princess, so every minute of Thark/Human in the same frame screen time that get reduced and replaced with humans and humans in the same frame.  I know there is a lot of resistance to the idea of “cutting corners” — but it’s time to get real about this.  John Carter 2 or John Carter: The Reboot at $140M is a much, much better proposition than John Carter 2 at $250m, which is a non-starter.

Anyway, here is Tim’s piece — please be sure and click and read the whole thing on his site, not just the intro that I’m pasting in here:

Arms, Tusks and Bodysuits, or how to create Tharks without CGI

One of the most expensive parts of making “John Carter” was the computer generated imagery (CGI) motion tracked Tharks; more specifically mixing the computer generated aliens within a live action scene.  What if there was a cheaper way to get them to the screen? I don’t mean removing two arms and using only prosthetics like in the low budget A Princess of Mars. Some people liked it I’m sure, but it doesn’t look convincing and there are better options available. If you conbine technology from the 1980’s and 1990’s with a high tech spin it could make convincing Tharks and possibly save 90-100 million dollars. Hear me out and you may agree:

The Problem: Money
The problem with the Tharks is that they cost millions of dollars to show on screen. The integration of the live characters with the CGI motion tracking is even more expensive than if the scene was all CGI like in Avatar. It’s time consuming and expensive.
What if there was a way to keep the Tharks using practical methods that are tried and true while mixing new science and still using some computers and motion tracking to keep the acting experience genuine? (Now that was a run on sentence)  How about Animatronics?

Animatronics were used all of the time in the 1990’s from the raptors and T-rex in Jurassic Park to TNMNT and more. They were used as recently as last year’s Prometheus and were used earlier for Narnia’s creatures like the minotaurs and Aslan. As computer graphics have improved and are now in almost every single summer blockbuster, animatronics were left behind on the small screen, TV.   Falling SkiesDoctor Who and other science fiction shows use them to bring life to alien creatures and robots. There is a downside however to the lower cost, the uncanny valley. But first let’s look at what could have been a nineties attempt at making a Thark.

Goro from Mortal Kombat

In the 1990’s one of the most remarkable feats of visual effects using animatronics was Goro from Mortal Kombat. The suit had four arms and was about 12 feet tall. Sound familiar? That’s the dimensions and proportions of a movie Thark. The suit even worked in basic combat, taking hits, giving them etc. This suit is quite cumbersome because of Goro’s size,  Would it look convincing now? Only if we cross the uncanny valley, and we are close. Jump below the making of Goro photos and I’ll explain more. What’s more, it’s actually Disney who’s figuring it out.

 

Read the rest: http://cinemapots.blogspot.com/2013/02/arms-tusks-and-bodysuits-or-how-to.html

34 comments

  • Well, I liked the subtleties a lot.

    Regarding the budget, without being able to know exact figures, is it safe to say that this discussion is about (perceived) costs versus (perceived) value?

    Development costs could very well have been included in the total escalating budget, that reminds one of the ill-fated (and imho ill-conceived)Tim Burton ‘Superman Lives’ development. That was a money pit without having anything to show for it.

    Thinking about the current state of the VFX-industry, with it’s crushing schedules, ‘John Carter’ seems to be an example of where time was used to get it right. What I’m wondering is whether this extended post-period, which was not even considered post as so much of the film still had to be added – ofcourse, is a significant cost factor as opposed to rushed schedules that seems to be the norm.

    Again, in that case it is absolutely valid to look at similar post-schedules, ‘Avatar’ and the ‘Star Wars’-prequels. In both cases the films have been a financial success, so the cost versus value was never in question. ‘Avatar’ was one hell of a gamble though, and in that way indeed similar to ‘John Carter’. And Weta and ILM are by no means bargain bin companies, so it does make you wonder. While I still prefer the overall quality of ‘John Carter’, to ‘Avatar’ and the ‘SW’-prequels, it could very well be that the difference in director’s experience comes into play. James Cameron and George Lucas brought a lot of experience to the table.

    As I’m thinking about differences that might explain cost versus value, what about the fact that ‘John Carter’ was shot on anamorphic 35mm, which added another difficulty (i.e. time and money) to the post process? Also, there is way more location photography in ‘John Carter’, and I wonder besides production costs which could be quite different from a studio and green-screen based production, especially in the remote locations where ‘JC’ was shot, if the compositing and use of these plates would have been much more expensive than creating the world digitally? Could anyone with some experience chime in?

    I do love the look of film, and it contributed significantly to the tone of the visuals.

    That being said, perhaps the ‘Lord of the Rings’ could be a somewhat more appropriate point of comparison, with it’s 35mm, location and mixed FX-work.

    As an aside, did anyone catch ‘John Carter’ on 35mm? I couldn’t, I just saw 2K digital and Imax, and they felt quite different in how especially the compositing (and 3D) worked out, so I was curious how a film print would have handled that aspect.

  • MCR wrote:

    The issue I have is this: Its hard to justify defending the waste of 250 million on a film where the major defense is “its the FX,” especially when you look at John Carter and see how empty the film looks FX wise. Where are the spectacular creatures, air battles and alien world of Barsoom? Did it all get eaten up by Tharks? Considering there were only four major speaking Thark parts that seems like a lot of money spent there and then for them to be given such a short amount of screen time. It just doesn’t add up and something smells fishy.

    You know — I thought this was sort of implicit but it might be better if I state it more clearly. Yes, I agree! There are certain aspect of FX that are perceived by the moviegoing public to have great production value and therefore to have probably cost a lot — massive air battles being a classic example. And then there are aspects of special effects that go over the head of the general audience and are only appreciated by the afficionadoes–supernuanced Tharks would fall into that category.

    In my world, it was typically something that would come up with the DP. He would always want twice as many lights and gizmos as we had in the budget, and I knew that most of what he was asking for would not be noticeable to the general audience. I used to say to them — look, I know you want a beautiful cinematographer’s reel, but I just can’t give you everything your heart desires. We want to make a great movie, but it has to make sense on a commercial level too. So work with me.

    I don’t think there was anyone having that kind of conversation with Stanton — there was just no culture in Pixar to approach it that way. Stanton talked about not wanting to work under “soul-crushing” restrictions and Morris was all about empowering him. All they were thinking about was that the movie has the potential to break out and be a success even if the budget is high . . . . . but they didn’t know that they were going to get a lousy promotion nor did they know that their film wasn’t going to wow audiences the way Stanton’s previous films had. Those both turned out to be bad assumptions.

    But yes — the big point is, if you’re going to spend a ton on Special Effects, have it go toward eye-popping, audience pleasing, big effing production value stuff, and don’t let it all go to subtleties that are largely lost on the mainstream audience.

    And of course there is a threshold int he Thark animation below which, if it goes that low, the audiences will start reacting negatively. But in this case, did they spend too much money trying to make the Tharks perfect when they could have either saved that money and made the film for less — or had more eye-popping big production value special effects that the ordinary moviegoer would regard as event-worthy, moreso than what they ended up with.? Open to question, of course.

  • Michael D. Sellers wrote:
    ” that but now you’re taking advantage of my tendency to pull back from stating my opinions strongly as if they are truth. Now, obviously you are taking the position that the fact that I’ve produced twenty movies, seen hundreds if not thousands of film budgets, give me no “cred” because I’ve been working mostly at the indie level and not on tentpole studio films.”

    OK I never meant to imply that. If it came across that way I’m sorry. I never intended to question your “cred.” Being sarcastic well that’s another thing but I never intended to insult you.

    The issue I have is this: Its hard to justify defending the waste of 250 million on a film where the major defense is “its the FX,” especially when you look at John Carter and see how empty the film looks FX wise. Where are the spectacular creatures, air battles and alien world of Barsoom? Did it all get eaten up by Tharks? Considering there were only four major speaking Thark parts that seems like a lot of money spent there and then for them to be given such a short amount of screen time. It just doesn’t add up and something smells fishy.

    I know that spending money on 12 days of reshoots may not break the bank (even though 12 on top of a previous 6 should have sent up warning flags that there was something rotten in the state of Pixar) but let us not forget: Andrew Stanton didn’t care for the budget. He was as you said cavalier about it through the whole process so who knows really what happened. I doubt the people who worked on this film will be honest. Heck most of the actors and crew who worked on Heaven’s Gate and Ishtar defend the directors to this day with no qualms about their budget busting or rampant egos. So for all we know Stanton was blowing money every day. Whose going to be honest and admit it? Stanton? Disney?

    Again I didn’t mean to question your credibility or knowledge. But Stanton’s and Disney’s needs serious questioning.

  • We can argue over the cost of animation vs reshoots all day, but the higher the budget the stranger (and irresponsible) Disney’s apathy in selling the movie in order to earn back their investment.

    Yup. And that’s pretty much the central mystery for which we have some answers but not all — how did Disney allow the production investment to become so misaligned with the marketing effort, or lack thereof? There are plenty of answers but it still rankles.

    And it’s also true that no one has ever stood up and confirmed the actual production investment which may be somewhat in excess of 250M. When Rich Ross pulled the plug on the Lone Ranger in August of 2011, the report about that in Deadline Hollywood included quotes from an unnamed Disney executive saying, in the first version of the article, that JC had gone to $300M. Disney allegedly frantically contacted Deadline and got them to revise the figure to $250M and that was the figure that stuck from then on. Neither Stanton nor Jim Morris are talking ….. and the truth is, it’s not 100% certain that the budget they were working with captured the full production investment as Disney is claiming it on their corporate books. There could easily be other charges for development costs, conceivably even some leftover from the earlier Disney development of the project (although those should have been written off prior to 2007), or other corporate and overhead charges, that were not even disclosed to Morris and Stanton. In other words the actual working budget and the studio’s claimed production investment may not be an exact match …. but that would be no more or less true for John Carter than for any other studio movie.

  • We can argue over the cost of animation vs reshoots all day, but the higher the budget the stranger (and irresponsible) Disney’s apathy in selling the movie in order to earn back their investment.

    To MCR, I concur with Michael, there is no way that those particular reshoots eat up an excessive amount of the budget. It was not as if a huge action scene was recreated, or a new air battle was devised or another finale or was it? Thát would have been costly. These reshoots, not so much.

    And I still say there is no confirmed number of the actual budget, either projected or final. Though, Zodanga looked quite expensive.

  • MCR …. you’ve been playin’ nice and I appreciate that but now you’re taking advantage of my tendency to pull back from stating my opinions strongly as if they are truth. Now, obviously you are taking the position that the fact that I’ve produced twenty movies, seen hundreds if not thousands of film budgets, give me no “cred” because I’ve been working mostly at the indie level and not on tentpole studio films. But over the years I’ve been involved developing some larger pictures and contrary to what you seem to think, I do have an inkling about how these budgets go. You are insisting on looking at one slice of a 250M budget and acting like that slice (the wind and grind of production for 18 days of reshoots) is really a big deal and it’s NOT. 6 Day of reshoots were budgeted. We’re talking about 12 days of reshoots, and I’ve explained previously that there were almost entirely studio days, with limited cast and crew, yada yada.

    But try this — here is a breakdown of the $200M budget for Spiderman 2. Pay attention to how much of the $200M went to physical production.

    First, here’s the source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2004/jun/11/3

    SCRIPT RIGHTS
    $20 million
    SCREENPLAY
    $10 million
    PRODUCERS
    $15 million
    DIRECTOR
    $10 million
    CAST
    $30 million
    PRODUCTION SHOOTING COST
    $45 million
    SPECIAL EFFECTS
    $65 million
    MUSIC
    $5 million
    COMPOSER
    $2 million
    TOTAL NEGATIVE COST
    $200 million

    Now I’m not saying everything matches up, but the production shooting cost will nto be that different. $45M in this case — let’s say it’s even $60m for 106 days of shooting of John Carter. Now add 12 days. That’s 10 percent more. It adds $6M. It is NOT the reason the budget went to $250M

    It’s just not.

    Nor is the Italian bootaneer on set relevant.

    Nope. Sorry, you can be as sarcastic as you want but you can’t pin the high cost of the production on reshoots. That’s just not the answer.

  • Thanks, Michael.

    I’d like to take some time and get back to that, digging back into the VFX articles I have saved, cross-referencing your findings in the book, along with another re-watch of the film for a serious technical breakdown.

    My instinct on the air battles is that they were certainly expensive, but that it wouldn’t have been much more so to have done a lot more with them. That’s one area where I do think the cost of the digital assets is front-loaded.

    In general, I think the massive cost of the film was a systemic accumulation of many factors stemming from a lot of what we’ve discussed here, but prominently a lack of innovative efficiency and a mismanagement of priorities.

    Will return to this with additional research, gentlemen.
    —-

    Pascalahad – tis’ true real budget numbers are illusive, and without inside info I can only offer a shrug. I agree that the Star Wars prequels really did have incredible budgetary efficiency given the rich scale and diversity of what they achieved. While the soundstage prospect is tantalizing from that perspective, part of me shudders at the notion of an all greenscreen ‘Princess of Mars’… I personally think enhancing real locations with CGI was maybe the best decision made on Disney John Carter, and my favorite shots in the film all feature those naturalistic landscapes. That said, it could have gone much farther design-wise.

  • “It’s possible I’m being snookered ”

    Well it depends. Who are you talking to? People who worked on this movie? Because let’s be honest here, even Stanton and the producers have refused to admit the film’s cost. You might remember Stanton even got his panties in a bunch when the press began attacking him for the budget and his defense that he was on time and budget and that Disney gave him more money for reshoots. Again it goes back to how clueless or cavalier Stanton was concerning the budget or someone’s math got screwy somewhere.

    As far as the reshoots and it adding it up, that was on top of location shooting; keeping Italian bootmakers on call (as Stanton and company mentioned in their Blu-Ray commentary); etc. The little stuff begins to add up after a while on top of the money going to the FX companies for their work (as shoddy or pointless as a lot of it ended up being). So either someone overcharged Disney, Stanton needed to take accounting classes (and screenwriting classes and live action directing classes) or someone blew a lot of money without thinking about it.

  • As for DJC’s budget I still have a hard time believing that 250 million was eaten up by the Thark animation, considering how uneven it was (and I’m not alone as the Oscars showed by skipping it). But 18 days for reshoots? That seems excessive when you consider it does add up. In fact probably what I suspect really happened wasn’t the Tharks eating up the budget but all the little things started adding up, including those reshoots which would result in having to hire or pay the original crew, costuming and makeup teams, any stunt work and new actors (since we know that’s where Mrs. Crispy Critter Carter and Dead Kid popped up).

    MCR I think most of your points are well-taken — but let me address this one. When they did re-shoots, here are the big ticket items that didn’t cost them anything extra

    1. Taylor Kitsch (run-of-show contract, meaning there was no incremental cost for calling him back for more shooting other than per-diem, air-fare, and hotel, amounting to a total of a maximum of $5,000 for 12 extra, unscheduled days of reshoots).

    2. Lynn Collins (same as Taylor)

    3. Andrew Stanton (same)

    So for starters — those bigger ticket items aren’t affected.

    You are left with location or stage rental (how much can that be — $5,000/day max? times 30 days including prep/build tim), Equipment rental (how much for 12 days — let be crazy extravagant an dcall it $20k/day or $240,000). Below the line crew — $5k/week for department heads and go down from there …. figure $400,000 for that. What else? The SFX and post production wasn’t affected by it . . . . . Lesser actors working on a day rate didn’t cost anything (Amanda/Mrs. Carter couldn’t be making more than a couple K per day, max) . . . ..

    I just don’t see how 12 unscheduled days of reshoots end up being material to the overall budget situation and I’ve looked pretty deeply into it, and have had some pretty substantive discussions with people who should know. It’s possible I’m being snookered . . . . but I don’t think so. I think you really have to look elsewhere to figure out where the money went.

  • “I think that also has something to do with why Stanton is so cavalier about the budget. I don’t think it’s completely just arrogance or “I don’t care” . . . . but rather than in the Pixar equation it’s not like when the budget goes high they say “gotta cut extras, can’t hire so many helicopters” as live action filmmakers are used to ….. My sense is that he just doesn’t know how to think like a live action film-maker who, if they’ve had any training in lowbudget or even medium budget features, knows intuitively how to break down the script, even if only in their head, and know what the cost drivers are and plan accordingly.”

    That’s part of it. But don’t discount the arrogance. 😉

    The other issue is this: Stanton’s never worked on a film where something didn’t work and he had to improvise. All of his films as director were planned out and calculated to the nth degree that there wasn’t any unforeseen issues or for that matter much spontaniety if something didn’t work. He’s never had problems with the shark not working or being in a low budget arena and having to think on his feet. A reviewer I read recently said great film art is as much about compromise as it is genius and how directors work sometimes best when they are under constraints or not having things work. It seems when you give them everything you get Ishtar or Heaven’s Gate or John Carter: massive ego and a feeling of invincibility, that they are the supreme being.

    As for DJC’s budget I still have a hard time believing that 250 million was eaten up by the Thark animation, considering how uneven it was (and I’m not alone as the Oscars showed by skipping it). But 18 days for reshoots? That seems excessive when you consider it does add up. In fact probably what I suspect really happened wasn’t the Tharks eating up the budget but all the little things started adding up, including those reshoots which would result in having to hire or pay the original crew, costuming and makeup teams, any stunt work and new actors (since we know that’s where Mrs. Crispy Critter Carter and Dead Kid popped up).

    Also the comment about the producers not being neophytes that Ejz said that’s hard to believe. They were as much neophytes as Stanton was to live action filmmaking and failed to do what producers do. Someone needed to be there to keep things under control but running and both Jim Morris and LIndsey Collins failed at their jobs. (That and the fact that they shared Stanton’s lack of respect for ERB, the books, fans, etc also makes it clear they just believed whatever Stanton told them so they were just nothing more than mere yes men to infallible Andrew).

    The issue of making a new John Carter of Mars film will have to be made cheaper than what Stanton did. Possibly hiring filmmakers who are used to working on time and budget can help bring those things in and still make a good movie. Because what Barsoom doesn’t need is another round of Stanton’s Ishtar like tendencies, both cost and story wise.

  • Other question about movie budgets : can we trust the reported budgets of the Star Wars prequels? 115 million dollars for episode 1 and 2, even less (113M) for episode 3. Perhaps George Lucas is an exception in the industry though, and that economy was achieved by the many in-house facilities at his disposal (which are now Disney’s, by the way). Name actors, special effects in every shot… Even if my reservations are huge in the writing and directing department, I can admire the cost efficiency of those productions as a whole. The main difference I see with John Carter is that a vast portion of the shooting took place indoors on soundstages. Sin City cost 40M, 300 65M. Indiana Jones 4, with its extensive location shooting, cost 185M. Considering these figures it doesn’t seem unreasonable to have a budget of 150M to shoot A Princess of Mars, and I don’t think it’s much of a sacrifice to shoot in a studio. Quite the opposite in fact, since it would allow to create really otherworldly landscape (ah, that Mondo poster!!).

    It will be interesting to see what cost, if ever revealed, episode 7 will have. Star Trek (2009) cost 150M.

  • Interesting discussion everyone. I would first of all question the basic budget assumptions, for both ‘DJC’ and ‘Avatar’. Who knows if these figures that are being used here and elsewhere are correct? Therefore, this whole comparison with ‘Avatar’ on a budgetary level strikes me as weak. Story-wise, ok. Budget-wise, no. Without reliable numbers, this is just a guessing game. My guess is that ‘Avatar’ was way more expensive than ‘DJC’.

    Some other thoughts;

    ‘Avatar’ has been a long time in the making, besides the script, all the R & D that went into creating it. It’s production process was very different as well. Studio-based, mostly fully CG, with some life action. Very different crew needed to shoot. Instead of a foundation of life action, with CG added.

    Enough about the director already, the role of the producers should also not be underestimated in this discussion. ‘DJC’s were not neophytes.

    Thanks for the good points in comparing the vfx allocations, in that sense ‘Avatar’ was clearly more efficient.

    Still, if we’re comparing the two, personally, ‘Avatar’s style, while successful, never struck me as photo-real as ‘DJC’ can be (most of the times). This could be a matter of my taste as well, as I really don’t like ‘Avatar’s video game aesthetic. While both the Nav’i and Tharks are heavily stylized, I believe in the Tharks being ‘real’ as encountered in ‘DJC’, as opposed to the ‘animated’ feel of the Nav’i. Would animatronics be able to deliver such performances? I doubt it.

  • Excellent notes, Henreid — and many thanks to Tim B. for starting this discussion.

    Henreid, I’m thinking that you might be able to really do a serious breakdown of DJC and where you think the money went, and didn’t go, and that might yield some interesting discoveries. Let me try a few things out on you — please react.

    1. Yes, the point about humans and Tharks in a frame together is simply that, theoretically, the bar goes up a bit and as you note certain complications are introduced all of which take time to work out and time equals money. That’s the only point there. I’m not saying that they actually do something qualitatively different than when they don’t have humans int he frame — just that it’s more complicated and time consuming and budget consuming to get to the point where you’re satisfied with it when there are both humans and CGI creatures in the frame, particularly when we’re dealing with closeups.

    2. What is your position on the air battles? Do you think the aerial battles in DJC were a big cost factor — so much so that they had to be limited because of cost? I’m not saying that these are negligible costs, not at all. But there is a tendency on the part of a lot of people to think that this is where a lot of the cost is lodged, and my understanding is that it’s just a cost — not the biggest or most impactful cost.

    3. Did the blue thern nanotech really add much cost? I’m surrpised, really, because I didn’t find it that compelling. Seems a waste if it did.

    4. I agree with what you say about Cameron and I do think he really squeezed more out, now that you break it down a bit. Certainly he did a bit more with creatures — not just in terms of ahving more of them, but exploiting them more. The amount of screen time for the banshees and leonopterix was substantia, and the two scenes with the Thanataur were really extensive. (There’s nothing in all of DJC that compares, in terms of dynamic action, with the first Thanotaur scene that ends with Jake Sully leaping into the water. It’s more than just backgrounds. But the world that Cameron created was a lush, verdant world — filled with flora and fauna. Barsoom can’t be that, but it can be more than we saw. I agree.

    So what do you really think drove the cost of DJC? I really don’t believe 18 days of reshoots, most of them on a stage in LA, were really that much of a factor on a film with 100 days of principal photography and 6 days of reshoots in the original budget. The incremental addition of shooting days is not that big, and a lot of the time was spent shooting inserts to be inserted into existing scenes — small crew, few actors, yada yada.

    My sense of it is that it’s just additive. Stanton claimed that there were more animated shots in DJC than in Wall-E or Nemo and if that’s true, and they are shooting it Pixar style, that just creates a “baseload” of animation that already gets you up pretty high. How high? It is possible the animated elements alone cost $150M? Cnosidering that Wall-E, with no star salaries and fewer animated shots, etc, cost $180m

    It’s always seemed to me that if you look at the escalation of Pixar budgets over the years and then you drop DJC into the timeline of all the budgets, the real drier was just the Pixar way of doing things and by that I’m not specifically talking about reshoots — I’m just talking about what it costs Pixar to animate stuff.

    I think that also has something to do with why Stanton is so cavalier about the budget. I don’t think it’s completely just arrogance or “I don’t care” . . . . but rather than in the Pixar equation it’s not like when the budget goes high they say “gotta cut extras, can’t hire so many helicopters” as live action filmmakers are used to ….. My sense is that he just doesn’t know how to think like a live action film-maker who, if they’ve had any training in lowbudget or even medium budget features, knows intuitively how to break down the script, even if only in their head, and know what the cost drivers are and plan accordingly.

    Anyway ….. your thoughts, sir, on precisely why John Carter cost what it did? I would love to hear you break it down.

  • Not to divert from the excellent discussion between Michale & Abraham, both sides of which I am impressed, but it’s predicated on an assumption I disagree with.

    “My understanding was that the thing that really drove the budget was: 1) The amount of Thark screen time, generally, 2) The amount of Thark-and-humans-in-the-same-closeups screen time that really pushed the budget up.”

    (1) is certainly true, but I’m not sure where (2) is coming from. The only rationale for this I can come up with is that CGI characters have to hold up to better scrutiny next to their human co-stars… but if that were the case, those CGI close-ups would look different (better) than the ones not featuring humans, and this would lead to an incongruity. There are other difficulties, like dealing with skin deformations when they touch each other, but none of those things are budget-busters. Having studied VFX for most of my life, and recently devouring all I could learn from James Cameron’s Avatar, I don’t buy this as a primary reason Disney John Carter had to cost so much.

    Stanton emerged through the Pixar bubble, where he didn’t have to deal with numbers, and – as Michael said – in animation, where there are less variables than in live action.

    “I’ve always worked with huge budgets, I mean the truth is, this is all I have ever known.
    …I’ve always ignored what the budget is. I’ve never felt any gain to be worrying about numbers” _AS

    The Pixar process is also a major factor: reshooting an animated scene involves re-animating assets and re-recording voices… but reshooting a live-action scene can involve trucks and tents and small armies assembled in the desert.

    Stanton also spent a lot of money on VFX that weren’t in the novel and didn’t add much to his own film. The blue Thern ‘nanotechnology’ is an admittedly gorgeous procedural fractal effect that took years to develop to his satisfaction. That kind of thing doesn’t come cheap. The walking ‘predator’ city of Zodanga is an incredibly complex piece of modelling and animation with a fair amount of screen time that adds… what? It’s an expensive set-up that never pays off since he stages the climax in Helium. A final battle assault on his walking Zodanga could have been quite interesting, but instead the action is diverted to a massive set in Helium, (complete with superfluous floating moon reflector dais) that doesn’t add much besides being somewhere else. Instead of good old-fashioned, well-choreographed swordplay, Stanton insists on paying for endless ‘morphing’ effects, flying nano-boots, nano-lightsabers, and more nano-goo.
    Stanton had his team build and animate a full scale, glorious Xavarian that only appears for a minute. A big part of this seems to be his expectation of success and assumption of earning sequels. He certainly didn’t ‘leave it all on the field’, anyway. There’s no silver bullet on the cost of DJC – but a series of overruns are clear, and they’re virtually everywhere.

    Cameron, by contrast, honed his skills in low-budget genre films, working each production job along the way. He learned efficiency and effectiveness with limited resources, and this informs everything about the way he deploys his now massive budgets.

    The bang/buck ratio speaks for itself in box office and critical acclaim, and that’s hardly all due to good or bad marketing. Even the most ardent fan of Disney John Carter couldn’t claim it has action or scope that even approaches the complexity, scale, or dynamic spectacle of Avatar. I truly wish it did, but it doesn’t. I think that would hold true even if you removed Cameron’s entire aerial battle from contest. There’s a lot more going on than just better detailed backgrounds. In the character animation world beyond the Na’vi (and Na’vi children), the Pandoran ecosystem includes Banshees, Hammerheads, Viper-Wolves, Stingbats, those grazing cow-things, the Thanator and the Great Leonopteryx. (Compare this to Stanton’s Tharks, Thark-babies, Warhoons, Woola, and White Apes). What’s more is that virtually all of these elements, the animals, all the ships/vehicles, are brought to bear in the final battle, and deliver. Nothing is abandoned after a brief cameo (besides the interstellar spacecraft). The Shuttle that brings Jake down to Pandora is the bomber in the finale. Much of the film takes place within Hometree, and it’s destruction is the catalyst for the rest of the narrative. The dragon carrier is introduced then, and used again in the final battle. The Samson gunship is used repeatedly throughout the film, as are the Power-Suits.It should be noted that there is almost another full hour of deleted scenes from Avatar (including the overtaking of the human base), meaning that he shot a 4hour movie for that budget.

    Obviously there is no 1-1 comparison between these films, I’m just trying to illustrate the use of a budget under an aware filmmaker trained to squeeze the most out of what he has.

    I am 100% with Abraham that ‘A Princess of Mars’ demands a top-tier budget, and that the stage is set for an incredible comeback. I don’t want to see another attempt if it’s not going to be the grand slam it deserves. And I don’t want to see that media rebound squandered on another strike-out of an adaptation (or sequel).

    I’m also 100% with Michael that this isn’t going to happen again for 250M.
    That’s simply not realistic.

    My point is this:
    It can be done for less without sacrificing the scale. 150M isn’t even unreasonable, except under someone like Stanton, who proudly doesn’t know or care what anything costs. It will take clever, budget-conscious filmmakers driven by real passion for the actual material, who can tackle how best to use resources to convey the imaginative, thematic, and social power of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels, as written.

  • Crustbucket, I would. Based on the success of “Star Wars” and “Avatar” there is reason to believe that the combined narrative elements in a full-throttle Barsoom adaptation would resonate powerfully with worldwide audiences and bring a return several times greater than the investment. I would make sure, though, that every “missing piece” that undermined DJC was firmly in place for the next go-around.

  • James Cameron. Really, where is he going to go with Avatar II and III. “Oh look, there is some ultra-unobtainium in the ocean and the big bad corporation is coming to get it out. Nav’i now have to save the ocean after saving the forest”

    He should keep this ruse going but secretly start script and pre production work on Gods of Mars. Lay low until 2015 and Disney gives up the rights. Then, BOOM, snatch up the rights and start filming to rape all our eyeballs by 2017 in 48 FPS, 3D and ATMOS.

    My Monday morning fantasy 2/11/13.

  • Good stuff . . . . I don’t disagree and I think that a case can indeed be made for giving it another shot at a top tier budget — it’s just a harder case to make and particularly so at a time when anyone speaking about a sequel or reboot is considered slightly daft. But you’re absolutely right . . . we don’t have convince a ton of people — just the RIGHT people or person even, an things can start happening.

  • Good points about “Avatar”. The apparent disparity between the two films is making more sense.

    Michael wrote:

    “Disney took the plunge, spent the big bucks, and the market didn’t support it. We can make the argument that by doing everything properly the market would have supported it, but if anything it will be harder now than it was in 2005 to make the case.”

    What has been established in the wake of DJC is the absolute minimum baseline support for a John Carter film – what can be expected given all the blunders and lack of demonstrable marketing effort. The next film will be helped by the fact that more people now know about Barsoom and ERB, an awareness that has grown despite Disney having given it short shrift. The stage has been set, but there will still be a lot of heavy lifting for the next film to do on the heritage side of things. The enthusiastic comments seen across the internet in response to the heritage elements is a hint of the interest that could be provoked by skillful marketing of the next film.

    The lack of “name” elements was also a huge part of DJC’s box office failure. A film that expensive must be able to build trust by giving the audience some degree of familiarity. No such angle was pursued, by the production team or by Disney.

    It is difficult to conclude definitively how the market responded to John Carter, in light of how many cards were left on the table. The problem wasn’t that the market didn’t support the idea of a top-tier Barsoom adaptation, but that the market was tested inconclusively. It’s true that DJC was not sufficiently embraced to justify its budget. But a different Barsoom film, sold differently, with trust-enhancing “name” elements, would have many reasons to believe that it would be greeted by a market of an entirely different nature.

    The financial failure of DJC is discouraging, but superficially so.

    “Pixar was really a joker in the deck — the on production scenario that could basically approach it without such concern for the normal parameters because Pixar has made things work in ways no one else has. But it didn’t end up working, for whatever combination of reasons we assign to it….”

    And ironically, there were deliberate efforts to distance the project from the Pixar brand – “it is NOT a Pixar production”. In a sense it was orphaned by one of the elements that could have made a real difference in drawing an initial audience. That scenario further illustrates the lack of “names”, a lack which robbed the production of credibility it might have otherwise gained in the public eye. The Disney name, by itself, doesn’t help support the impression that a project in this genre will have weight. “Pirates of the Caribbean” had the Bruckheimer name to give it a huge boost, but was still hounded by the “based on a ride” disparagement at first. Because there was no big, trust-inspiring name on DJC, it was that much easier for audiences to jump to the conclusion that it was a “derivative, Disney knockoff of Avatar and Star Wars”. Without a basic emphasis on the link to ERB, there was nothing substantive in place to counter the “knockoff” narrative.

    In terms of marketing, I find it difficult to judge if the Pixar factor was really even given a chance. On the production side, yes, there’s a good possibility that Dick Cook’s decision to give the project to Andrew Stanton had to do with the creative mystique of Pixar, which supports the idea that Cook’s decision was about more than keeping Pixar folks happy in the Disney fold.

    When the discussion turns to a reboot, there are other jokers in the deck of the film business, some of them much bigger and more reputable than Pixar when it comes to adaptations of the John Carter variety. If the right one or two people can be intrigued and provoked to pursue a Barsoom reboot, to be done with unprecedented ambition and courageous creative vision, then the necessary doors can begin to open. It’s an “outside the box” scenario, which defies the conventional thinking, but projects with the potential for extraordinary payoff often operate outside the usual parameters. Barsoom done right would be a “next step” for the film industry, so it makes sense that the pursuit of it would shake up some categories and challenge some comfort zones. Again, it just needs one or two people at the top to take the bold steps. The foundation upon which those steps will be taken has already proven its unique strength for more than a century.

    “I’m not saying it’s impossible to get someone to support it at the highest budget level, but it sets the bar of persuasion a lot higher. I am not optimistic.”

    I understand what you mean. A lower budget would be more likely to garner financial support and get another film made – and things may eventually end up going that way. I have to say though, I don’t mind a higher bar of persuasion. That challenge isn’t enough to deter me from aiming for something more. I suppose several years ago I moved way past worrying about optimism and likely outcomes, and settled in for the long fight for the best-case scenario. I don’t know if that goal will ever be accomplished, but I will fight for it nonetheless.

    There is raw imaginative power in the Barsoom stories that nothing else has touched, though plenty of storytellers have chased it. Barsoom was initially realized on the page, but lends itself uniquely to the strengths of cinema. It’s closest narrative siblings, “Star Wars” and “Avatar”, have become phenomenal successes. The thought of an excellent adaptation of the original, ground-breaking Barsoom source material is uniquely inspiring and intimidating. It would be an enormous task for everyone involved, but the staggering challenge would be slowly swallowed up in a rising tide of satisfaction gained from bringing the incomparable world of Barsoom to life. This cause warrants the utmost support that professional filmmaking has to offer, both in terms of talent and financial resources.

  • Abe …here are some thoughts.

    Abraham Sherman wrote

    Assuming it was the Thark and human shared screentime that drove up the budget, I’m still left wondering how “Avatar” seemed to get a lot more for the price.

    Interesting….before answering I went to check with Box Office Mojo to make sure I have my numbers right — and the have N/A for the Avatar budget. I’m pretty sure it can be tracked down and verified, but here’s what I remember, pretty clearly. The original announced production investment was $270M, and then after it was decided to do a sequel, that was reduced to either $239 or $229. This is normal ….. all one-time costs are borne by the first film when it’s a standalone. When it becomes a franchise, these one-time costs are then amortized over the franchise. John Carter would, if Disney miraculously decided to do a sequel, see it’s budget (i.e. production investment) in the first movie reduced from $250M to $225 or maybe $220.

    My point is … I dont’ think Avatar got more bang for the buck except in the sense that Cameron filled up the frame with a lot more eye candy. No barren unenhanced Utah landscape. But that’s not a big driver of cost…. backgrounds, however beautiful and complex, just don’t consume the production hours the way frame by frame animation of characters do…….

    Beyond that … I’m pretty sure the amount of screen time where you have humans and Na’vi in the frame at the same time is very, very miniscule compared to JohnCarter. I recall how shocking it felt at the end to see Neytiri and Sully together in the frame. I think that beat, and the beat where they lay down the dying Grace, are lmost the only ones where there is any close work. There is also the stuff at the beginning in the lab, and at the end when the “aliens” are “sent back to their dying planet” — but that’s just a long shot. Anyway, my sense of it is that JC and Avatar got about the same bang for the buck, but Cameron was more conscious of maximizing “production value” in the way that live action filmmakers think of it, while Stanton seemed less conscious of how to squeeze every drop–or alternatively just didn’t want of do that because of his desire to keep it “realistic’ and “historic”…..

    In a way, I feel like I’m back where I was before any definite word about a film production had been announced – somewhere around 2005.

    I know. I don’t like it either. But now, unlike then — there is an actual baseline of data. Disney took the plunge, spent the big bucks, and the market didn’t support it. We can make the argument that by doing everything properly the market would have supported it, but if anything it will be harder now than it was in 2005 to make the case. Pixar was really a joker in the deck — the on production scenario that could basically approach it without such concern for the normal parameters because Pixar has made things work in ways no one else has. But it didn’t end up working, for whatever combination of reasons we assign to it.

    I’m not saying it’s impossible to get someone to support it at the highest budget level, but it sets the bar of persuasion a lot higher. I am not optimistic.

    As for “defensive filmmaking that has something other than the best interests of the adaptation at heart” … I would counter with, “insisting on a topend budget for fear that the material will be shortchanged by anything less, may run the risk of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

    I just don’t think it’s either or.

    You need people involved who are committed to BOTH excellence and economy. It can be done, IMHO.

  • Mike, you could be right that none of the down-sizing of Barsoom was budget-related. The only people who know for sure probably won’t comment on it. I don’t have any confirmation that budget was the deciding factor, just a general suspicion that saving money is a main reason to go smaller than what is described in the source material, whatever project it might be. It’s encouraging to me to hear that an increase in scale isn’t always that much more expensive.

    Assuming it was the Thark and human shared screentime that drove up the budget, I’m still left wondering how “Avatar” seemed to get a lot more for the price. Was it that the Navi were less frequently in the same frame as the humans? Both the Navi and the Tharks were made with performance capture and look fully convincing in their respective films. Perhaps the Tharks were more complex and demanding in ways that aren’t immediately apparent to those who aren’t involved in the effects industry? Did the barren landscapes and interaction with humans increase the expectations of realism to the extent of costing tens of millions more dollars? “Avatar” looks like it should have been the much more expensive film, but there are admittedly a lot of factors in play.

    Michael wrote: “As to the idea of waiting until a fully unfettered, full-budgeted JC can happen …. I really fear that’s a recipe for never seeing one. A market for the material has been defined, and it doesn’t support a budget that high — even if there is an allowance for the bad marketing and the grown of a fan base in the meantime.”

    In a way, I feel like I’m back where I was before any definite word about a film production had been announced – somewhere around 2005. The discussion then was much the same as it is now – “don’t expect a top-tier budget, nobody really knows and supports the property enough to justify the expense” etc. An argument can be made that things are in pretty much the same boat. A film has been made, but it bombed, so the popularity bump has been more like a roller-coaster. Plotted on a graph, I’d say the overall position of the property in the public consciousness has improved somewhat, since so many more people have now been introduced to Barsoom, and many of them have even read the books. While there is the superficial “stigma” of the box office debacle, the source material remains as rich as ever, and a lot of the hard ground has been broken up, in terms of awareness. The preparations have been made for the next iteration to wildly flourish, assuming that it is produced and marketed with excellence. While there are many in the industry who would balk at a fully-budgeted follow-up (sequel or reboot), the potential for an ambitious and captivating film to become a phenomenal success is much stronger today than it was a year ago. To deprive that potential success of the full-fledged financial support that it needs solely because an earlier adaptation faltered for reasons unrelated to the source material, sounds like defensive filmmaking that has something other than the best interests of the adaptation at heart.

    Yes, many potential financiers will be instinctively hesitant because of the DJC debacle, but as has been demonstrated in “John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood” and across the internet in articles and blogs and comments, the specific reasons that DJC fell short are becoming quite well understood, such that the obvious pitfalls could be addressed the next time around. And whatever shortcomings were evident in the film itself can be remedied in another take on the adaptation.

    The potential is there in the books to take imaginative filmmaking to the next level, beyond “Avatar”, beyond “Star Wars”. There just has never been source material with as many fertile ingredients, with the potential to be maximized into the kind of experience for which cinema was invented. Barsoom as a “waking dream” is unmatched, as its century of unparalleled influence and inspiration demonstrate. Disney’s John Carter barely scratched the surface, partly because it was a bit too “realistic” in its approach, and partly because it went for more of the “Indiana Jones on Mars” comic book sensibility rather than the full-throttle “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Lord of the Rings” sensibility.

    If the next film is made for $150 million and uses less-than-cutting-edge technology, there will be yet another film, a reboot of Barsoom at its fullest, that much sooner thereafter.

  • Abe … your comment is a good and insteresting one, but I would like to attempt to persuade you of the possibility that you’re falling into a bit of a trap in your way of thinking. Let me take a shot at it.

    That they made creative decisions to keep the budget down is no secret, with Stanton’s mentions of not being able to afford live banths. I also suspect that the budget was the reason we saw so few fliers in the film, and why the number of Tharks in the crowd and battle scenes was reduced by several orders of magnitude compared to the novel. The cities were 1/10 the size they are in the novels, the relatively inexpensive Utah backdrops were used extensively despite looking quite Jasoomian, etc.

    Umm…I don’t really think so. The way I read Stanton’s comments about the dead banths was that it was “the one time” in the whole shoot when he had to make a compromise. And it was an easy one to make because thy were just peripheral to the story. I never came across any indication that all these other areas you speak of were actually compromises made for cost.

    My impression (and if there are interviews or other things I missed that will refute this, pls point me to them) was that a an animation director, Stanton had only a vague concept of what cost money and what didn’t. His comments about “not caring” about the budget were, as I understood them, an acknowledgment that he didn’t really follow the process of budget making, and that in his experience films just cost what they cost – -which is pretty much the way it is in animation, where everything is created from whole cloth and it’s just a function of this many animators and this much time to create this much stuff.

    Live action film-making involves a lot of additional variables and I saw no indication that Stanton (or anyone else) had a particularly nuanced approach to the “maximize production value, minimize cost” approach that is second nature to most live action filmmakers. There is very little cost differential, for example, between doing an air battle between two flyers, and doing one between two giant armadas. It’s not as simple as copy/paste — but there is an element of copy/paste to it . And in fact the aerial battles are all easily within the SFX capabilities and not all that expensive.

    Similarly, building out the cities and taking 5 seconds to actually show, for example, Helium in all its glory, would not add substantially to the budget. He just never “went there”, other than in the original opening sequence where there is a shot which, had it ever been finished, would have given us a much better taste of the beauty of Helium. But he cut that scene and never saw the need to really show us Helium after that . . .

    Similarly, multiplying the scope of battle scenes and making them ore epic is also not a huge cost increaser.

    My understanding was that the thing that really drove the budget was: 1) The amount of Thark screen time, generally, 2) The amount of Thark-and-humans-in-the-same-closeups screen time that really pushed the budget up.

    So, to my way of thinking, one option is to explore animatronics for the main characters at least. There have been advances in animatronics since the 1990’s . . . maybe there’s something there to be explored. We’ll never know unless someone does a test or some other movie comes along to prove yay or nay.

    Another option, or part of the answer, is to just get the script of Gods and Warlord and break it down in terms of Thark screen time, etc. My sense is that it’s a lot less than in APOM, at least based on the book content.

    As to the idea of waiting until a fully unfettered, full-budgeted JC can happen …. I really fear that’s a recipe for never seeing one. A market for the material has been defined, and it doesn’t support a budget that high — even if there is an allowance for the bad marketing and the grown of a fan base in the meantime. Any Hollywood studio looking at this situation is — I’m almost certain — going to say thanks but no thanks to a budget as big as the first one. I think a lower budget — however it is achieved — is essential to actually getting a second film to happen unless it’s so far in the future (20 years) that reference to the budget of the first film is no longer relevant at all.

    I really strongly urge people who really want to see more John Carter to make peace with the fact that some cost consciousness has to enter into it. Just has to.

  • Abraham Sherman wrote:
    “That they made creative decisions to keep the budget down is no secret, with Stanton’s mentions of not being able to afford live banths. I also suspect that the budget was the reason we saw so few fliers in the film, and why the number of Tharks in the crowd and battle scenes was reduced by several orders of magnitude compared to the novel.”

    Whoa, whoa, whoa. What the hell did Stanton spend all that money on? Those butt ugly tattoos? Taylor Kitsch’s personal trainer? Having some personal person running around with a stool to prop his feet up? How can a movie cost 250 million dollars and look so empty FX wise? Especially compared to the similiarly budgeted Avatar, with its constant Na’vi presence, its wildly divergent animal life and unique-and alien-design to Pandora?

    I mean I suspect a large chunk of the budget went to Stanton’s Kubrickian reshoot fetish but still that’s a large waste of money for so little.

    Oh well, chalk it up to another Stantonian failure and another slap at ERB. I guess the only positive I can say about this is if Disney actually at some point allows a sequel to be made-you know if hell freezes over or Stanton actually reads A Princess of Mars and not the Wikipedia description-then maybe someone at Disney will remember “Hey we just bought ILM from George Lucas.” If nothing else being an in-house FX outfit might save them money. If not do it as puppets.

  • Could animatronic Tharks be used in a sequel or reboot? Yes. Should they be? That’s the question.

    As noted elsewhere, Goro-like techniques, which are impressive in their own right, have been relegated to TV productions in the intervening years. There’s nothing wrong with those techniques, but anyone who would consider using them for the Tharks and other creatures should know that that would put the project on a lower tier than Disney’s John Carter and would sell Barsoom vastly short. The attempt to use animatronics and elaborate suits, and the eventual futility of that approach in attempting to realize the creatures of Barsoom, was part of what “did in” the earlier attempts at the adaptation at Disney back in the 90’s. It would be ironic indeed for John Carter to have waited decades for technology to do it justice in an ambitious and successful film adaptation, only to have to deliberately scale back the technology for reasons having nothing to do with the source material. The vision of Barsoom, as it will be seen in the next film, should not be allowed to suffer because of the Disney debacle.

    If necessary, I would rather wait additional years for a situation in which the next film would receive a maximum budget and cutting-edge effects techniques. The idea of a “settling for scraps” version in the meantime is not appealing. Someone might respond that it’s easy for me to volunteer other people’s money in these matters, but my main concern is that Barsoom be done right in its next cinematic venture, and the ideal of what that should look like should at least be expressed. The notion of restricting creative decisions according to heightened budgetary concerns should be approached carefully, and with a willingness to call the whole thing off if that restrictive approach will undermine much of what makes the property special in the first place. Yes, there is much to the appeal of Barsoom that doesn’t require a big budget, but at the same time, many of the elements that set ERB’s world apart are also things that will drive up a budget by necessity.

    Honestly, despite the $250 million, DJC felt like a too-restrictive version of Barsoom, and much of that was due to the budget. That they made creative decisions to keep the budget down is no secret, with Stanton’s mentions of not being able to afford live banths. I also suspect that the budget was the reason we saw so few fliers in the film, and why the number of Tharks in the crowd and battle scenes was reduced by several orders of magnitude compared to the novel. The cities were 1/10 the size they are in the novels, the relatively inexpensive Utah backdrops were used extensively despite looking quite Jasoomian, etc. I don’t know what wonders of financial efficiency any other filmmakers might be able to achieve, but in any case, it’s unlikely that the bar could be maintained, let alone raised, by anything less than another budget of at least $250 million. Those who are familiar with the grand imaginings of ERB understand that the payoff would be much greater than the investment – as demonstrated by “Avatar” and “Star Wars”, the most ERB-esque films made yet.

    And would Goro-type Tharks actually be accurate to what ERB described? Did ERB imagine a torso-stacked-on-torso appearance? In the novel, early descriptions of the Tharks have them walking alternately on two or four limbs – more like gorilla-centaurs than tall men with extra arms. The Tharks in DJC, while in line with many traditional representations in the history of ERB artwork, were too humanoid to fulfill ERB’s vision. Hopefully, the next cinematic realization of the Tharks will make them the exotic alien/mythic creatures that they are, rather than the double humanoid torso that seems to have become the imagined default, despite the descriptions in the novel.

    Any sequel or reboot to John Carter will be scrutinized like few films before it, assuming that it is aiming for major feature film status, due to it following an infamous bomb. The financial failure of DJC didn’t lower expectations for the next film – it raised them significantly. If anyone thought the schadenfreude was bad on the first film, they should take a moment to imagine what would happen if the dogpile media ever caught wind of a “low-budget wanna-be” follow-up that pretended it was in the same league as its predecessor.

    Now, low-budget films can be made in smart ways that make them look much more “expensive” than they are, but could that be done with a John Carter follow-up in a way that wouldn’t draw more bad attention than good? The next film will be on EVERYONE’S radar, at least at first in a kind of “guilty pleasure” way, a narrative which would have to be transformed into “expectations blown out of the water”.

    Putting forth a film in that context, one which would take obvious steps back with the effects techniques could end up being an invitation to mockery and further sabotage of the PR narrative, beyond the “Bomb 2.0” jibes that WILL come from some quarters of the industry and media. There will be no sure way to keep those lazy rock-throwing narratives from cropping up, but there would be a way to answer them – the next film must exceed expectations, both narratively and technically. The next film needs to BE the event that Disney should have made John Carter out to be (and which DJC was, in a three-out-of-four-stars way).

    Unless the next film is resigned to being less than a top-tier, cutting edge production, it will have to top what was accomplished in Disney’s John Carter.

    Honestly, nothing about Barsoom is cheap. But if done right, it will pay back whatever investment it requires, many times over. ERB’s world practically screams “Go big or go home!”

  • There are basically two ways to represent the extra limbs of a Thark, you either add another torso on top of a “human” torso (that’s the way Jesse Marsh draw Tharks), but the proportions are way off. Or you had the extra limbs midway between “normal” arms and hips. This way you keep human proportions, and you can keep the limbs (and the mouth) of the performer. For the extra limbs, it would either prosthetics or another performer behind the main one, dressed entirely in blue to be erased later from the frame (that’s the way C3PO was animated in The Phantom Menace). All would be filmed against blue screen (not green for obvious reasons) and inserted later with the main actors. But then, I am no filmmaker to begin with! 🙂

    The irony is that should Disney want to go that way, they have the perfect team to achieve that: Jim Henson’s creature shop. From Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the Dinosaurs show, to The Storyteller and Farscape, they’re perhaps the most experienced with successful animatronics team ever.

  • It would be really interesting to create a test of a “Thark on the cheap” that could provide proof of concept that there is an effective, lower cost alternative. Nothing would prove it better than doing it. I think we have some people in our extended circle (or who could be brought into our extended circle) who might be interested in creating that proof of concept. . . . . . or am I dreaming?

  • Amen, Pascalahad, and I’m glad you brought that up.

    I think the way to achieve that is through performance rather than technique, though, and that means driving CGI characters via actors. I do think you need performance capture to do the characters justice, but I absolutely agree that they ought to be portrayed as written – without betraying any relatable compassion or emotion. One of the biggest problems with Stanton’s Tharks is that he didn’t exercise that restraint — they flounce about and cry with a very cartoony style of emotive movement. We don’t need to understand what they are feeling or thinking, in fact we shouldn’t, until Carter makes those deep connections to Sola and later Tars Tarkas.

    They should be stoic because of the actors, though, not just because they have been created with limited technology.

  • Seriously? Are you people who believe need quarter a billion for the movie, living in real world? I seriously doubt that. It seems you are living in your self inflated bubbles of hypergrown marketing companies. Just take a good look on kickstarter, doesnt remind it somethink? like start of ILM for example? Ground breaking new technologies are being poured through sieve of market there pretty much every week, And they dont need even shard of this budget. Do you need any kind of motion capture, ask any bigger game developer then. Or hurl Million buck at bunch of MIT type students and they will develop it for you and work triple shifts to make it to deadline to have this reference and cash.
    Usual excuse for the budget is marketing, like cinema and TV commercials. Well John Carter got nearly nothing of that. IT almost seems like Disney tried to kill John Carter as franchise, like they wouldnt want it to be competition to phase 3 of Marvel movies (Planet Hulk).
    I still believe it is rather just ignorance and incompetence of one man, which could be corrected pretty easily for future being.

  • The problem has never been about how you do one Thark, but more how do you make an army of them. That’s probably what stopped Ray Harryhausen back in the days.

    I think the good question would be: do you really need performance capture for the Tharks? Why make them relatable characters at all? In the novel they are unhuman monsters and that works wonders. You can’t suspect at first glance that neither Tars or Sola are capable of “human” feelings, and the discovery of it is all the more surprising.

  • Yeah, I have to say I agree with Henreid. “John Carter” was a poor man’s version of Avatar’s successful new steps in crossing the CGI-live action gap, for the same money. A lot of people for some reason state their displeasure with Avatar, but it grossed over $2 billion, so the negative critics’ views are clearly not important to the general public as a whole. If somehow Cameron was able to do any reboot of “John Carter” and/or subsequent installments, wow, that might really be something epic in the movie goer experience. There are 10 remaining untouched books left in the “John Carter” franchise, and another 10 or 12 wonderful books, about Venus and other off-world adventures, by ERB, so there is no shortage of ref material for the RIGHT movie makers. We as the movie goers read so many complaints of so few new ideas in new movies, but there is still a treasure trove to tap.

  • Some combination of practical and CGI makes a lot of sense, as blended in Pan’s Labyrinth for instance, but animatronics alone simply aren’t there. It’s the main reason why it took 100 years for any version to get made. This is an interesting article, but Goro isn’t exactly good salesmanship. Animatronics can work great for monsters or creatures… but you’ll never get the performance of a leading character out of them (to be fair, at least not anytime soon).

    On the plus side, the cost of CGI drops as the cutting edge advances and more artists learn the tools. Performance capture is becoming a more ubiquitous technique, and in a few years it will not cost what it does today. All that said, ‘Avatar’ pioneered many new processes while managing to squeeze a helluva lot more screentime, action and emotion out of the Na’vi than ‘Disney John Carter’ did from the Tharks for that same $250M – and 3 years earlier – so it’s worth questioning the deal Stanton got with London, as well as his directorial efficiency.

  • “eternal challenge that will face any future John Carter movies — how to cut cost so as to get the budget in alignment with the size of the market.”

    Getting the FX budget down would help. Also getting rid of the director who thinks he’s the reincarnation of Stanley Kubrick and David Lean and getting one who knows how to balance live action and FX work properly would also be a big step to getting the budget down. 🙂

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