Tag Archives: Andrew Stanton

John Carter of Studio Drama

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[adrotate banner=”1″]Some more details of the fallout of John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) and the leaving of Rich Ross as Studio Head at Disney. It seems things are a bit more complicated than him just getting canned over a bomb. Now, this makes some sense, because Disney has had some horrible bombs that have lost lots of money. There had to be some behind the scenes action going on. And thanks to this JimHillMedia article I was sent by @rwmead.

Disney head honcho Bob Iger declares that no one is to point figures over John Carter.

Reading between the lines here, Bob Iger was trying to help John Lasseter’s very good friend Andrew Stanton save face. So Stanton’s initial attempt at making a live-action feature film had misfired. Big deal. The Walt Disney Company still considered Stanton to be a very valuable creative asset. Which — given that the two animated features that Andrew had directed for Pixar Animation Studios, 2003’s “Finding Nemo” and 2008’s “WALL-E” had a combined worldwide box office total of $1.388 billion (Not to mention the hundreds of million of dollars more that the Company has made off of plush, toys, ice shows and theme park attractions with direct ties to these Pixar characters) — was perfectly understandable.

Which was why the Company was doing everything within its power to spare Stanton any unnecessary embarrassment.

Things seemed good and Rich Ross was playing ball, but it looks like his team didn’t get the memo:

Well, Rich’s loyal staffers may have been looking to distance their boss from “John Carter” disappointing box office number. But Bob Iger and his team on the sixth floor of the Team Disney – Burbank Building – supposedly saw this situation entirely differently. They felt that Ross placing his own need to protect & preserve his professional reputation ahead of the Company’s needs, potentially damaging the Studio’s working relationship with Pixar senior management was an extremely poor choice. Which is why a decision was made at that time to speed exit Rich’s exit from The Walt Disney Company.

So Ross’s team might be the reason he got the axe. Which actually sort of sucks, but it also shows how valuable they see Stanton. If Stanton gives Disney another gigantic animated film or two, he might have enough clout to make another John Carter flick…if studio politics haven’t changed by then.

JOHN CARTER Lynn Collins Dejah Thoris

Here is a giant photo of Lynn Collins, because, why not?

John Carter of $200 Million Lost

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[adrotate banner=”1″]Whoops! Guess you should have advertised the film, Disney! Or at least kept it as John Carter OF MARS, dammit! Now we have a shameful $200 million lost and a big probability that there will be no sequel. Which is a shame, because John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) didn’t suck. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t trainwreck bad. Don’t take my word for it, take my word for it!

Disney said “John Carter” has brought in about $184 million in ticket sales worldwide so far. But ticket sales are split roughly in half with theater owners. The movie’s production budget is estimated to be about $250 million with about $100 million more spent on marketing.

The only way to make the money back is to make a sequel and spend $400 million to make it! It’s just crazy enough to work…

via

John Carter of Mars

We lost $200 million, but Transformers 3 made over a $ Billion??? That's it, we're invading Earth!

John Carter (Review)

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John Carter

aka John Carter of Mars

2012
Written by Andrew Stanton, Mark Andrews, and Michael Chabon
Directed by Andrew Stanton
John Carter of Mars
As you might expect, I’m a rather big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs and his Barsoom stories. I have the whole series in old out of print volumes culled from bookstores across the country. I have many other Burroughs books and other pulp novels. I have the Guide to Barsoom and some other books where Martians show up, and some of the old Marvel comics. You might say I like this crazy fantasy stuff. So, yes, I was excited that we were finally getting our big screen Barsoom film. Then it got renamed John Carter.
John Carter of Mars
After 100 years, A Princess of Mars is finally coming to the big screen (if you ignore Asylum’s DTV Princess of Mars…) as John Carter. John Carter. No “Of Mars”, no “A Princess of Mars”, no nothing. Add to that all the other abysmal marketing Disney did for the film, and suddenly the rumors that this will be the biggest box office bomb in the history of the planet and the red planet as well started to spring up. “Whatever,” I said, because I’ll let the movie speak for itself. And the movie has finally spoken. And it’s good. Not excellent, but good. Good enough that John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) should be doing better at the box office than it is tracking. Good enough that the naysayers were wrong, even if John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) does lose a lot of money, it is not because John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) failed.

That is not to say there isn’t any problems. There are. Some are pretty big. But I’ll get to most of them. But a simple review like this right after watching on opening night doesn’t do John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) justice, so rest assured there will be another, longer, super detailed, mega-ultra-hyper-giga-supreme-double-secret-comprehensive review once John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) is on DVD and I can screencap and watch a bajillion times to my heart’s content.
John Carter of Mars

John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) – The fighting man of Mars with the super jumping powers and the getting into everyone’s business powers. I will say making John Carter a reluctant hero is boring, that’s been overplayed since the 90s. And capitalizing it with him having a dead wife and kid just makes it even more boring. None of that junk is in the book, John Carter is just a dude who fights. No one needs a giant backstory. I didn’t start this website because a movie killed my family, sometimes things just are.
Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) – Now, I did not like what they did with John Carter, but I did like what they did with Dejah Thoris, making her a much stronger female character who still has the poise and confidence of a princess, even if she does human things from time to time. She’s also not afraid to fight for her country, the Dejah Thoris of the books does not fight at all and is more of a proud trophy that half the planet is trying to kidnap and marry.
Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) – Jeddak of the Tharks and the guy who finds John Carter after he gets his ass to Mars. Helps Carter in order to help his secret daughter, Sola.
Sola (Samantha Morton) – Thark female assigned to care for John Carter, is treated as a screw up by the evil woman Sarjoka. Is unaware that Tars Tarkas is her father.
Woola (CGI) – Martian dog assigned to keep watch on John Carter, instead becoming his loyal companion. Woola’s best scene (and one of the more charming scenes in the film) is when he’s first introduced, as it both gives us a look at his character and is entertaining as well.
Matai Shang (Mark Strong) – The leader of the Holy Therns aka White Martians aka the bad guys. While not originally in the original book (Matai and his buddies show up in books 2 and 3) he’s here causing trouble to make a bigger, more cohesive arc between a planned trilogy. Matai Shang and his ilk are more technologically advanced than in the books and have a far more sinister origin and goal.

John Carter of Mars
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John Carter of Mindless Violence

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[adrotate banner=”1″]Here’s the last John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) trailer, and it looks like they went from explaining nothing and looking boring to explaining nothing and having mindless violence. So. Yeah. Still no mention of “Directed by the guy who did Wall-E” or “From the writer who brought you Tarzan”. It’s a damn shame that people on the internet have done a way better job promoting John Carter than Disney, and we have absolutely nothing riding on this except the cost of our movie ticket. At least my old copies of the Barsoom books will still be there (though mine are in storage atm with most of my other pulp novels!)
It takes a Carter to bring peace to Mars...
Jimmy Carter of Mars via

John Carter of Troubled Waters

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[adrotate banner=”1″]Here is an exclusive poster of John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) by artist Mondo (J.C. Richard) that will be given to people who attend a midnight Imax show. Please note how it is 1000000 times better than the other crappy posters:

John Carter IMAX poster

And here is a fan trailer done by TheJohnCarterFiles. Please note how it is 1000000 times better than the other crappy trailers:

Now, when articles like this show up that claim John Carter will be the biggest money loser in the history of history…maybe, just maybe, it is because a pack of monkeys could have done a better job marketing John Carter than the current fail parade. And, yes, I should have said “a pack of white apes” to keep with the John Carter theme, but if Disney doesn’t give a frak…

John Carter of Featurette

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[adrotate banner=”1″]Here is a 90 second commercial with some more new footage and the cast yakking about how great John Carter (of Mars, dammit!) will be. Also the movie adaptation hit bookstores this week along with the Under the Moons of Mars anthology of new stories. I haven’t had a chance to read them yet as I’m just finished the Black Company books and have begun rereading the first three Barsoom books, then I’ll read the new stuff.
John Carter Lynn Collins