John Carter

[fanboy2000]

really, that should have been a big part of the marketing:

"Before Luke Skywalker...
Before Captain Kirk...
Before Superman...
There was.... John Carter of Mars!"

Of course, getting license to use the names of other characters in your advertising is not going to happen. But that's how it should have been sold anyway!

Another way to go would have been to say John Carter of Mars directed by Oscar winning director Andrew Stanton and written by Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon. I think that would have done well too.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It's being panned (unfairly, I think) by the BBC now.

Came across this quote which puzzles me from yahoo, as with a cost of $250 million...

"In light of the theatrical performance of John Carter ($184 million global box office), we expect the film to generate an operating loss of approximately $200 million during our second fiscal quarter ending March 31," the company said in a statement"

I can't quite work out how 250 million - 184 million = 200 million.

But then again, I hear that many apparently successful movies have actually performed SO poorly that the actors on a percentage haven't seen any money, so what do I know

 

[Umbran]

Operating costs include production cost plus marketing costs..

 

[Dire Bare]

It's being panned (unfairly, I think) by the BBC now.

Came across this quote which puzzles me from yahoo, as with a cost of $250 million...

"In light of the theatrical performance of John Carter ($184 million global box office), we expect the film to generate an operating loss of approximately $200 million during our second fiscal quarter ending March 31," the company said in a statement"

I can't quite work out how 250 million - 184 million = 200 million.

But then again, I hear that many apparently successful movies have actually performed SO poorly that the actors on a percentage haven't seen any money, so what do I know

The movie will probably be profitable after all theatre showings and DVD/Blu-Ray sales, especially with the overseas market. While not the blockbuster success Disney may have hoped for, nobody should be crying for them, especially with the crap marketing.

But then again, the term "Hollywood accounting" has become cliched for a reason.

 

[Janx]

I really liked the movie. It was funny, had action and get my interest up. Only negatives: Forced 3D, this happens almost all the time, and no option to watch 2D it relaly sucks. I hate 3D for almost all movies I've seen using it. Other negative is that I think marketing doesn't sell such a great movie enough, many people who would have liked it miss it and we don't have sequel. Damn it, I'd really wanted to have a sequel.

I watched it in 2D. It might depend on where you live, but check all the listings. Larger theatres seem to have 2D showings as well as 3D.

I don't trust 3D to be good yet. Avatar was excellent and set the bar, but James Cameron is the only guy to have gotten good press about 3D and how he made his film to be 3D from the start. As such, anybody else saying "it's in 3D" is more like an afterthought of cramming in some scenes where stuff appears to be coming at you.

Not worth the extra $5.

 

[Deset Gled]

I saw it last weekend. It was fun and entertaining, but not great. At it's heart, it is a standard Victorian era sci-fi story. It's loaded with all the standard tropes of the time. Some people will love that, some people will hate it. Overall, it was a decent action movie that will probably end up in my DVD collection, but it's far from a sci-fi classic.

The two biggest faults for me:

The music and sound. Did anyone who saw the movie hum one of the themes as they left the theatre? No, because the music was entirely forgettable. Not bad, mind you. It wasn't jarring and did a passable job. But it was completely unremarkable in every way. And the sound effects were like a checklist of standard stock sounds, thrown in with crappy editing.

The 3D. One of the biggest problems with modern 3D is that it makes motion look a little blurry. And so much of this movie was in high speed motion that the 3D took much more away than it added. Especially the scenes with the Thern technology, which was very intricate, lost a lot. Combine the bad sound with bad 3D and you have absolutely no reason to see this movie in IMAX. I did, and I regret the decision. And that's coming from someone who's a sucker for 3D.

 

[Nellisir]

I saw it in 2D, since I almost never wear my contacts and 3D glasses don't play well with my glasses. I didn't feel like I was missing anything.

 

[Umbran]

I saw it in 2D, since I almost never wear my contacts and 3D glasses don't play well with my glasses. I didn't feel like I was missing anything.

It doesn't seem to me that 3d adds much to most movies these days.

 

[Thotas]

That's because the movies aren't shot in 3D. They're converted after being shot in 2D. Learned my lesson on "Thor" -- not paying an extra three-fifty to have the movie look like crap ever again.

 

[Mercutio01]

Theaters are kind of forcing the issue, at least where I live. I noted it earlier in the thread, but the 2D showings of John Carter were either 5:45 PM or 11 PM, with only 3D showings in the interim. It sucks because the extra money was a waste, but my options were limited.