Why did Disney think "John Carter" would be a hit?

You've probably read by now that "John Carter" is a box office bomb. It's been all over that Disney will lose $200 million dollars because of it. Normally, a movie like this would come and go after making a modest amount, but the fact that it cost so much to make means that all conversations about the movie will be about it's box office performance, not it's quality. I have to ask, though - why did Disney spend so much money on this movie? They must have thought it was a safe bet. But why?

"John Carter" is based on a series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the writer who also created Tarzan. He introduces the character of John Carter in the "Barsoom" series, which began in 1912. It is very old-fashioned science fiction in that it romanticizes the previously mysterious and captivating planet of Mars. The movie tells the story of Carter, a Civil War veteran, who gets transported to Mars and tangled up in the conflicts of the planet's inhabitants.

The movie currently stands at a 51% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a painful 34% among Top Critics. The summary of critical opinion is that "while John Carter looks terrific and delivers its share of pulpy thrills, it also suffers from uneven pacing and occasionally incomprehensible plotting and characterization." Audiences weren't wowed by it either since it wasn't the smash anticipated. It's worth noting that sometimes movies do very well but are considered flops because they are being measured against the cost in making it. "John Carter," however, only made about $62 million stateside, which is not impressive at all. To give you some context for comparison, "21 Jump Street" has already made $71 million domestic, and even "Act of Valor" made $66 million domestic. "Safe House," which also received a 54% from Rotten Tomatoes, earned $122 million domestic.

So here lie the two big questions - why did Disney put so much faith in "John Carter" and why did it fail? First, let's address why Disney invested so much into it. Large-scale, sci-fi/action adventure movies can be very lucrative if they strike a chord with the viewing public. If you can build off of nostalgia for an established series of novels, even better. In the era of "Avatar," studios are willing to shell out the big bucks for movies with stellar visuals. Additionally, the Disney name still carries some weight when put before a film title. But in the end, "John Carter" didn't perform.

Like many people, I have a few opinions about why this is. First, there were no big names to draw in the crowds. If you know who Taylor Kitsch is at all, you probably know him as that guy who was on "Friday Night Lights." You know, that critically acclaimed show that no one watched. Between Sam Worthington, Channing Tatum, and now Taylor Kitsch, there seems to be a sale on bland hunks in Hollywood for leading roles. The rest of the cast is equally obscure, with the exception of Willem Dafoe. Although looking at the cast list, it's a veritable who's who of "that guys." It's filled with people who you probably recognize, but would never be able to identify by name. "Avatar" was led by two semi-nobodies, but you had the pedigree of James Cameron behind the picture. "John Carter" was directed by Andrew Stanton, an established Pixar director making his live-action debut here. "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" was the live-action debut of another Pixar man, Brad Bird. One of these men hit it big in live-action, and it ain't Stanton. Also, never underestimate the importance of good writing. Even if a movie looks amazing, if the story lacks any impact, its chances for success are slimmer.

A minor point I'd like to mention is the presence of the word "Disney" in the marketing campaign. The movie is PG-13, but the Disney label might keep some folks away. Disney is still associated with children's entertainment. My youth was the time of the Disney Renaissance, filled with brilliant children's movies, but they were still aimed at the younger crowd. If all you know about "John Carter" is that it's that Disney movie set on Mars, you're probably not going to be dying to see it, in my opinion. That's just not enough for true mass appeal. On this topic, I think the story itself isn't a big draw. The concept of "the mysterious Red planet" is very old-fashioned. Mars once set the literary world ablaze as writers' imaginations overflowed with possibilities for intelligent life in space. But it's 2012, and while Mars fiction will always be around, it doesn't have quite the same appeal as it did in the early 1900s when John Carter first set foot there in Burrough's novels. The concept just felt painfully antiquated. And if you don't have big stars or a well-known director/writer or a premise intriguing to the mainstream, maybe you can at least draw in the fans of the source material. To be perfectly honest, I had never heard of the John Carter novels before this movie came out. I'm positive there are many people like me who saw previews for this movie, a Disney sci-fi epic with a (still largely) unknown lead with a title like "John Carter," and barely registered it.

Whether it's due to all of my reasons or none of them, "John Carter" bombed big time. A sequel was planned, but it's not clear if that's going to happen or not. Despite plenty of source material to draw from, it's unlikely Disney will sink more money into this franchise.

Comparing Action Movie Franchises (Worldwide & Domestic Grosses)

And now for a comparison of the box office statistics instead of the critical ratings. Take these with a grain of salt, though, since I'm not aiming for absolute statistical accuracy. I'm using a combination of Wikipedia and IMDB stats and rounding them, so these are rough numbers. However, they're still accurate enough to get the trends across. The only major difference between the worldwide and domestic grosses seems to be the fact that "Die Hard with a Vengeance" did better than "Die Hard 2: Die Harder" worldwide, but did worse domestically.

Comparing Action Movie Franchises (Die Hard, Mission Impossible, Indiana Jones)

As I wrote my previous blog post and started comparing movie franchises in my head, I wondered how they stacked up against one another over time in the ratings. I'm talking solely about their quality, not their box office revenue. So I went to Rotten Tomatoes and charted their trajectories according to the general consensus of professional critics.

"Die Hard" franchise includes:
"Die Hard" - 1988 (94%)
"Die Hard 2: Die Harder" - 1990 (65%)
"Die Hard with a Vengeance" - 1995 (50%)
"Live Free or Die Hard" - 2007 (82%)

"Mission Impossible" franchise includes:
"Mission Impossible" - 1996 (60%)
"Mission Impossible 2" - 2000 (57%)
"Mission Impossible 3" - 2006 (70%)

"Indiana Jones" franchise includes:
"Raiders of the Lost Ark" - 1981 (94%)
"Temple of Doom" - 1984 (85%)
"The Last Crusade" - 1989 (89%)
"Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" - 2008 (77%)

I don't entirely agree with all of these ratings, but they do manage to give you an idea of what direction each franchise has gone. The second "Die Hard" is in no way better than the third. "Live Free or Die Hard" suffers a lot of backlash among fans, but it deserves its rating. It was not the complete and utter mess people say it is, it just wasn't what they were expecting/wanting. And I think it's a downright travesty that "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is rated at 77% while "Mission Impossible: 3" stands at 70%. Not that MI3 needs to be that much higher, it's more like that last Indy movie was horrendous and superfluous.

12 years passed between the previous two "Die Hard" movies, while a whopping 19 years passed between the previous two "Indiana Jones" movies. To put even more weird perspective on this, when Sean Connery played Indiana Jones' father in "The Last Crusade," Connery was 58 years old. In "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," Harrison Ford was 65 years old. I love you Harrison Ford, but Bruce Willis and Tom Cruise can still handle being action stars while I think your time has come and gone. And really, with characters like Han Solo and Indiana Jones under your belt, you really shouldn't have to stoop to doing any more "Indiana Jones" movies today.

"Die Hard 5" - How about "Just Die Already...Hard"?

I adore "Die Hard." "Die Harder" was a big letdown. "Die Hard with a Vengeance" is pretty entertaining, and has Samuel L Jackson, so that's a plus. "Live Free or Die Hard" is very divisive but I fall on the side of loving every insane minute of it. But I do agree that it's not entirely a true "Die Hard" movie. John McClane was no longer the everyman, but the classic indestructible cop hero of action cinema.

Lately it's been announced that the next movie is about to be shot and is called "A Good Day to Die Hard." Really? That doesn't sound very badass. It will be set in Russia, which is helping sell it for me. I love a good action movie set in Russia, even though Russians as antagonists is a wildly outdated movie concept. Who knows, maybe it'll be set in Russia for some ridiculous reason but the whole country won't be portrayed as the villain. I don't know how they're going to get John McClane there, but I'm curious as hell to find out. Can we work Putin in here somehow? Yippi-ki-yay, comrade.

And now, according to this Variety article, they're searching for an actor to play McClane's son to take over the franchise. My first reaction was, 'because that worked so well for Indiana Jones.' My second immediate reaction was, 'why not just go with Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lucy McClane?' I loved her in the fourth movie. Even though she had to be the damsel in distress, she held her own and I could definitely see her stepping up to the plate. I guess as long as they don't go with Shia LaBeouf, I'm good. It's just that I would really love to see them be unique and let a woman step up and take over. Why does this even have to continue though? Short answer, money. But creatively, the series just needs to end. With all the 80s remakes coming left and right, it's almost cliche to say it, but think of a new idea already! I just blogged about what to do when your favorite TV shows go downhill. Well, what do you do when a film franchise you loved starts going downhill?

Yes, I loved the last "Die Hard" entry, but what are the odds that this next one is any good? Maybe I'm being too pessimistic, considering this is all coming from a person who is counting down the days until "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol." Who cares if the franchise distances itself so far from its original premise that it's something entirely new? Can't it be a good action movie in its own right, even if it bears no resemblance to its predecessors? "Live Free or Die Hard" still had some call-backs to the other films. John McClane wasn't the vulnerable hero anymore, but in the end the villains were executing a highly convoluted, complicated scheme just to commit a robbery (like in "Die Hard"s 1 and 3). On one hand, we have the Indiana Jones franchise, that sputtered and turned out a crappy attempt to continue the series. On the other hand, we have the Mission Impossible franchise that came back with a very strong third installment and what looks like a solid fourth movie as well that will try to hand off the leading man role to Jeremy Renner. Perhaps this could work. (One thing that would certainly help is if they reinstated the R rating. Let the blood and swearing fly, McClane! I want a grown-up action movie, and an R gives it that freedom.)

No matter how this turns out, I still know where I'll be Valentine's Day of 2013 - going to a theater to see "A Good Day to Die Hard." And quite honestly, any day is a good day for "Die Hard." (So long as they don't fuck this up as bad as the last Indiana Jones movie!)

A salute to great movie action

Yeah, I've been on a youtube craze lately. But this will probably be my last new video for a while. The "Cougar Town" one just came up spontaneously, but this one and my previous Dancing With the Shows video were ideas I'd had for a long time and just now managed to make a reality.

This one is dedicated to action scenes. It features mostly action movies, but there's some horror, sci-fi, and drama mixed in there too. Really, as long as the scene kicked ass and it was from a movie I like, I included it. Like my previous dancing video which played like a list of my favorite TV shows, this one plays like a list of my favorite movies. Ever more insight into the mind of tvgirl ;-)

SPOILER ALERT (a few key plot points are given away, but nothing on the scale of Rosebud or "I see dead people")

My Top 10: Phrases in TV/Movies that should be banned

There are certain lines in movies and TV shows that, every time I hear them, I can't help but cringe. There are so many cliches, but I'm talking about specific dialogue that keeps popping up over and over and over again. I first thought more deeply about this after watching the "We've Got Company!" video, reminding us how many times people say that in movies when we must wonder - has anyone ever said that in real life? I am not including natural cliches, like "it couldn't get any worse" because that's not specific to movies and TV shows. I'm not including things that aren't phrases, like "noooo," "get out of there," or, the frequent hacker quote, "we're in." It has to be a little more particular than that. I'm also not including famous phrases that people quote a lot - these lines are not natural cliches or oft-quoted famous phrases, they're just lines from the big and small screen that really need to die. (So, as much as I'd like to include the reality show staple "I'm not here to make friends!," it doesn't qualify for this fiction-based Top 10.)

10. "This ends here"

("And I will strike down upon these motherfucking snakes with great vengeance")

Our noble hero is fed up. Finished. Done with this. So he boldly declares that "this ends here. Today. Right now. I'm ending it." No promises, no vows, just a simple statement that this situation is going to be handled, damnit!

9. "Everything's about to change"

("Wait a minute. I'm miserable...in...the....future...?")

This one is primarily popular in movie trailers and I am so sick of it. Especially in the context of a movie trailer where we don't even have a frame of reference for what is changing and for whom! And if I hear it spoken in a show or movie, it's so blunt and pointless that it really irritates me. Yes, we know everything is going to change. Otherwise, there would be no conflict driving the narrative. And change is scary! It's a prime example of telling, not showing, in its finest form. In case you're too stupid to get it, we're now going to inform you that the plot is taking a turn. Thanks.

8. "I don't know what to think!"

("Wait, the creepy President is the Big Bad?")

Normally, this comes after a bewildered character faces repeated questioning about what he or she really thinks. They get exasperated at all the false accusations and after the tenth time they hear "is that what you think?" They frustratedly blurt out "I don't know what to think!" Their whole world was just ripped apart by some big plot device and they are clueless. Or they haven't come to accept the truth: that the hero is always right about what's going on. You'll think what he thinks. Clear?

7. "This isn't a movie/TV show, this is real life!"

("Come on, Truman, this isn't some TV show")

But this is a movie/TV show! How clever. It comes across as another insult of our intelligence. Sure, the writers are just being tongue-in-cheek normally, but it seems so awkward when we know we're watching a movie/TV show. Or the writers want you to think that this particular show or movie is grounded in reality, not some fantasy world. But it instantly takes me out of said fiction when they have dialogue specifically mentioning that it isn't fiction. If you want some meta, fine, but be more subtle than that.

6. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you"

("Oh, you really didn't kill your wife? Sorry for the mix-up. Let's find that one-armed bastard!")

Followed up 99.99% of the time with "try me." Our aforementioned bewildered character is now trying to get to the bottom of what they really do think and they come across the character who knows exactly what's going on. And he just can't believe it. (Or doesn't care.)

5. "The hunter becomes the hunted"

("My sources report that shit just got real")

I'll be honest, I wanted to put this one higher, but it's used most egregiously in movie trailers, normally for action or thriller flicks. Our big bad hero realizes that the tables have been turned, or some corrupt authority finds it's being targeted by people it trained to epically realize other people's shit. And we're supposed to be in awe over the irony or poetic justice of it all.

4. "Let's go home"

(See you in another life, brother)

Our noble hero has saved the day, reunited with his family, repaired all broken relationships, vowed to settle down and turn in his badge and gun and cherish what he previously took for granted. Talk about more stating the obvious. This is a classic painful line and I'm kind of surprised when I hear it in modern movies.

3. "You don't have to do this!"

("I have an English accent, of course I have to do this!")

Someone, probably a villain, is about to torture or kill a victim. The victim pleads desperately, trying to rationalize why the villain doesn't really have to be villainous. But unless the the villain is actually being forced to do things because his family is being held hostage, he doesn't just have to do this, he wants to do this. Especially if he needs to find the secret Founding Fathers treasure before you do.

2. "You don't want to know"

("What's happening to the Nazis, Indy?!")

How long until the comet reaches Earth? How many carnivorous dinosaurs are on this island? How much more time until the bomb goes off? How long has my quiet English sidekick actually been evil? Where have you been? I think you know the answer.

1. "You have no idea who/what you're dealing with!"

("Death has come for you, friendo")

This one bothers me the most because, most of the time, the hero really does know who they're dealing with. This is inevitably uttered by a henchman right before death, but the villain is free to state this one if he's feeling threatened. Because once you inform the hero that he's in over his head, he'll apologize and go home. Unless, of course, said villain took the hero's family hostage in which case things just get personal and the villain is in for some major pain. Look out, Mr. Villain, we've got company!