John Carter (film)
John Carter is a 2012 American science fiction action-adventure film directed by Andrew Stanton, written by Stanton, Mark Andrews, and Michael Chabon, and based on A Princess of Mars, the first book in the Barsoom series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Produced by Jim Morris, Colin Wilson and Lindsey Collins, it stars Taylor Kitsch in the title role, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy and Willem Dafoe. It chronicles the first interplanetary adventure of John Carter and his attempts to mediate civil unrest amongst the warring kingdoms of Barsoom.
"John Carter of Mars (film)" redirects here. For the 2009 film, see John Carter of Mars (2009 film).John Carter
- Andrew Stanton
- Mark Andrews
- Michael Chabon
- Jim Morris
- Colin Wilson
- Lindsey Collins
- February 22, 2012 (Los Angeles)
- March 9, 2012 (United States)
132 minutes[3]
United States
English
- $306.6 million (gross)
- $263.7 million (net)
$284.1 million
Several attempts to adapt the Barsoom series had been made since the 1930s by various major studios and producers. Most of these efforts ultimately stalled in development hell. In the late-2000s, Walt Disney Pictures began a concerted effort to adapt Burroughs' works to film, after an abandoned venture in the 1980s. The project was driven by Stanton, who had pressed Disney to renew the screen rights from the Burroughs estate. Stanton became the new film's director in 2009. It was his live-action debut, after his directorial work for Disney on the Pixar animated films Finding Nemo and WALL-E.[4][5] Filming began in November 2009, with principal photography underway in January 2010, wrapping seven months later in July.[6][7] Michael Giacchino, who scored many Pixar films, composed the music.[8] Like Pixar's Brave that same year, the film is dedicated to the memory of Steve Jobs.[9]
It was released in the United States by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures on March 9, 2012, marking the centennial of the titular character's first appearance. It was presented in Disney Digital 3D, RealD 3D and IMAX 3D formats.[10][11][12] It received mixed reviews, with praise for its visuals, Giacchino's score, and the action sequences, but criticism of the characterization and plot. It failed at the North American box office, but set an opening-day record in Russia.[13] It grossed $284 million at the worldwide box office, resulting in a $200 million writedown for Disney, becoming one of the biggest box office bombs in history. With a total cost of $350 million, including an estimated production budget of $263 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made. Due to its poor performance, Disney cancelled plans for Gods of Mars and Warlord of Mars, the rest of the trilogy Stanton had planned.[14][15] Much of the film's failure has been attributed to its promotion, which has been called "one of the worst marketing campaigns in movie history".[16][17][18]
Plot[edit]
In 1881, Edgar Rice Burroughs attends the funeral of his uncle, John Carter, a former American Civil War Confederate Army captain who died suddenly. Per Carter's instructions, the body is put in a tomb that can be unlocked only from the inside. His attorney gives Carter's personal journal for Burroughs to read.
In a flashback to 1868 in the Arizona Territory, Union Colonel Powell arrests Carter with hopes that Carter will help in fighting local Apache. Carter escapes his holding cell, but fails to get far with U.S. cavalry soldiers in close pursuit. After a run-in with a band of Apaches, Carter and a wounded Powell are chased until they hide in a cave that turns out to be filled with gold. A Thern appears in the cave at that moment and, surprised by the two men, attacks them with a knife; Carter kills him but accidentally activates the Thern's powerful medallion and is unwittingly transported to a ruined and dying planet, Barsoom, known to Carter as Mars. Because of his different bone density and the planet's low gravity, Carter is able to jump high and perform feats of incredible strength. He is captured by the Tharks, a nomadic tribe of Green Martians and their Jeddak, Tars Tarkas.
Elsewhere on Barsoom, the Red Martian cities of Helium and Zodanga have been at war for a thousand years. Sab Than, Jeddak of Zodanga, armed with a special weapon obtained from the Thern leader Matai Shang, proposes a cease-fire and an end to the war by marrying the Princess of Helium, Dejah Thoris. The Princess escapes and is rescued by Carter.
Carter, Dejah, and Tarkas's daughter, Sola, reach a spot in a sacred river to find a way for Carter to get back to Earth. They discover that the medallions are powered by a "ninth ray" that is also the source of Sab Than's weapon. They are then attacked by a vicious race called the Warhoon under the direction of Shang. Carter and Dejah are taken back to Zodanga. A demoralized Dejah grudgingly agrees to marry Sab Than and gives Carter instructions on how to use the medallion to return to Earth. Carter decides to stay and is captured by Shang, who explains to him the purpose of Therns and how they manipulate the civilizations of different worlds to their doom, feeding off the planet's resources in the process, and intend to do the same thing with Barsoom by choosing Sab Than to rule the planet. Carter goes back to the Tharks with Sola to request their help. There they discover a ruthless brute, Tal Hajus, has overthrown Tarkas. Carter and an injured Tarkas battle with two enormous Great White-Apes in an arena before Carter kills Hajus, thereby becoming the leader of the Tharks.
The Thark army storms Zodanga, realizing their army is waiting outside Helium, John and the Tharks commandeer the Zodangan airships and fly to Helium. Carter defeats the Zodangan army, while Sab Than is killed and Shang is forced to escape. Carter becomes prince of Helium by marrying Dejah. On their first night, Carter decides to stay forever on Mars and throws away his medallion. Seizing this opportunity, Shang briefly reappears and gives Carter another challenge, sending him back to Earth. Carter embarks on a long quest to find one of their medallions on Earth; after several years he appears to die suddenly and asks for unusual funeral arrangements — consistent with his having found a medallion, since his return to Mars would leave his Earth body in a coma-like state, and makes Burroughs his protector.
Back in the present, Burroughs runs back to Carter's tomb and uses clues to open it. Just as he does so, a Thern appears and raises a weapon before Carter appears and shoots the Thern in the back. He reveals that he had never found another medallion; instead, he devised a scheme to lure a Thern from hiding, thus winning Shang's challenge. Carter then uses the dead Thern's medallion to return to Barsoom.
Release[edit]
Theatrical run[edit]
John Carter was released theatrically in the United States by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.[2] The original film release date was June 8, 2012. In January 2011, Disney moved the release date up three months to March 9 of that year.[10][69][70] A teaser trailer for the film premiered on July 14 and was shown in 3D and 2D with showings of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2; the official trailer premiered on November 30. On February 5, 2012, an extended commercial promoting the movie aired during the Super Bowl,[57] and the day before the game, Stanton, a Massachusetts native, held a special screening of the film for both the team members and families of the New England Patriots and New York Giants, the competing teams.[71]
Home media[edit]
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released John Carter on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital download on June 5, 2012. The home media release was made available in three different physical packages: a four-disc combo pack (1 disc Blu-ray 3D, 1-disc Blu-ray, 1 DVD, and 1-disc digital copy), a two-disc combo pack (1 disc Blu-ray, 1 disc DVD), and one-disc DVD. John Carter was also made available in 3D High Definition, High Definition, and Standard Definition Digital. Additionally, the home media edition was available in an On-Demand format. The Blu-ray bonus features include Disney Second Screen functionality, "360 Degrees of John Carter", deleted scenes, and "Barsoom Bloopers". The DVD bonus features included "100 Years in the Making", and audio commentary with filmmakers. The High Definition Digital and Standard Definition Digital versions both include Disney Second Screen, "Barsoom Bloopers", and deleted scenes. The Digital 3D High Definition Digital copy does not include bonus features.[72] In mid-June, the movie topped sales on both the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart, which tracks overall disc sales, and Nielsen's dedicated Blu-ray Disc sales chart, with the DVD release selling almost a million copies making $17 million and Blu-ray and 3-D releases selling almost as many copies making $19.2 million, for a combined total of $36.3 million in its first week alone.[73][74]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
Although the film grossed nearly $300 million worldwide, it lost a considerable amount of money due to its cost. At the time of its release, Disney claimed the film's production budget was $250 million, although tax returns released in 2014 revealed its exact budget was $263.7 million after taking tax credits into account.[75] Before the film opened, analysts predicted the film would be a huge financial failure due to its exorbitant cost combined with production and marketing costs of $350 million,[76] with Paul Dergarabedian, president of Hollywood.com, noting "John Carter's bloated budget would have required it to generate worldwide tickets sales of more than $600 million to break even ... a height reached by only 63 films in the history of moviemaking".[77] Within two weeks of its release, Disney took a $200 million writedown on the film, ranking it among the biggest box-office bombs of all time.[76][j] Two months after the release, the Walt Disney Company released a statement on its earnings attributing the $161 million decline in the operating income of its Studio Entertainment division to a loss of $84 million in the quarter ending March 2012 "primarily" due to the performance of John Carter and the associated cost write-down.[79]
Aftermath[edit]
Corporate[edit]
The film's failure led to the resignation of Rich Ross, the head of Walt Disney Studios, even though Ross had arrived there from his earlier success at the Disney Channel with John Carter already in development.[120] Ross theoretically could have stopped production on John Carter as he did with a planned remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, or minimized the budget as he did to The Lone Ranger starring Johnny Depp.[121] Instead, Stanton was given the production budget requested for John Carter, backed with an estimated $100 million marketing campaign that is typical for a tentpole movie but without significant merchandising or other ancillary tie-ins.[55] It was reported that Ross later sought to blame Pixar for John Carter, which prompted key Pixar executives to turn against Ross, who already had alienated many within the studio.[122]
In September 2014, studio president Alan Bergman was asked at a conference if Disney had been able to partially recoup its losses on The Lone Ranger and John Carter through subsequent release windows or other monetization methods, and he responded: "I'm going to answer that question honestly and tell you no, it didn't get that much better. We did lose that much money on those movies".[123]
Double Negative, the British visual effects house now known as DNEG, also saw its business adversely affected by the film's failure. According to its later head, Robyn Luckham, who worked extensively on John Carter, the goal of working on the film was to develop expertise in animating creatures, something they believed would be in demand in the near future. "[E]veryone got cold feet", he recalls. "We didn't have another big show like that for a long time. It was tough".[35]
Personal[edit]
The night after the premiere, Lynn Collins says she was at another event to promote the movie, when her manager at the time told her "you're just going to have to disappear for a while" due to the mounting perception of the film's failure. She felt it was sexist that as the film's female lead she should suffer for its failure while Kitsch went on to make Battleship,[k] another big-budget science fiction film that failed at the box office when it was released two months after John Carter. "I took a break and tried to figure out, up until then my career and my work, I really allowed it to define me", she later said. A year later she fired not just her manager but her entire representation.[35]
After the premiere, Stanton went back to New York City, where as he later told the LA Times he spent the next three weeks riding the subway, working on other scripts and reconnecting with his daughter and friends.[44] "I had to go into true 'Lost Weekend' to just purge myself" of empty nest syndrome, he said later.[35] He returned to Pixar, where his many longtime coworkers felt badly for him;[44] Iger had called him shortly after the premiere, quoting from Theodore Roosevelt's "Citizenship in a Republic" speech. "It was the best thing anybody could say at that moment and especially him", Stanton recalled. "It just made me all the more loyal to him after that, whatever they needed help with".[35]