Looks Like John Carter Flopped So Bad it Crushed an Entire Snow White Adaptation at Disney

I almost have to applaud here. For as much as I love Saoirse Ronan, the prospect of having a white-led movie set in China specifically to support the main character and reinforce exoticism and mysticism in cultural and racial stereotypes makes me squirm. Make strong female Chinese Snow White… but don’t act like an entire country is an interesting set piece. That’s gross. Give Saoirse more Hanna roles :) 

I love Snow White, don’t get me wrong…but can we make over a new princess yet? There are 17 bajillion fairy tales in this world.

 And the title, “Seven,” just adds a creepy vibe I really hate. Don’t they realize that a  MASSIVELY POPULAR serial killer movie has exactly the same name?

I am so glad someone else already made this point. I hadn’t heard of the movie but got kind of excited until Saoirse’s name came up. And then I realized that the stepmother probably would have been Chinese because Disney/Hollywood does not think these things through or understand what the ‘Unfortunate Implications’ trope is. 

Saoirse Ronan should totally get cast more often, just not in something like this. 

The “Seven” movie was actually going to be the snow white story set in Japan with Samurai dwarves and not a live action adaptation of the cartoon, so maybe canceling the project was for the best.

Technically, though, does Deja Thoris still count as a “Disney Princess,” now?

(Th’ only Disney Princess nicknamed “Professor” and who designs Death Rays, I’d like to note. And who’s oviparous.)

What sucks is that I didn’t even think John Carter was that bad. I rather enjoyed it. But somehow it’s become the biggest flop in Hollywood history, studio executives are retiring because of it, other movies are being canceled in its wake, and Andrew Stanton will probably never make a live action film again. *sigh*

I don’t mourn the loss of yet another Snow White film but the sheer disaster that Carter turned into makes me sad.

Agreed.  As far as I can tell, I and most of my SciFi friends thought it was pretty good, but people around us in the theater were walking out. I guess there was too much time between explosions for them.

I quite enjoyed it as well. And as bad as the marketing campaign was, I’m honestly not sure how it managed to flop so badly. It was a surprisingly faithful adaptation of a book written in 1911 that managed, as a film, to hold up favourably in comparison to the best science-fantasy films of the last 40 years (it was certainly much more fun than the Star Wars prequels). It was kid-friendly without being cloying or obnoxious. How was there not a market for this film?

 The movie was a bit more enjoyable than I thought it’d be, if only for some of the side characters and the intrigue they brought. Battle scenes weren’t too bad either.

I think there was/is a market for this, but the bad (and offensive HEH GIRLS DON’T LIKE FILMS) marketing and waaaaay overinflated budget put the final nails in the coffin. I work at a theater, and many of my co-workers had no idea what the film was about even though we had posters and trailers surrounding us. Even more were surprised they left ‘Princess of Mars’ out of the title when I told them.

Okay, I pretty much freaked out when I read that the movie would be about a girl from Hong Kong, and then I read Saoirse Ronan would be the star, and the excitement was so gone.  Why the hell would they have a white actress (even though she is brilliant) star in a film set in Hong Kong with what sounds like other Chinese actors and actresses?  That’s bull.  I’m glad it wasn’t made- save their time and white-washing.

 It’s really inspiring to read a comment like this. So many people put down stereotyping and ‘white saviours’ as petty complaints, but it’s been an issue ever since Hollywood was founded.

We…really don’t need any more of this. Overused fairytales and, as you put it, reinforced exoticism through the lens of a pretty white protagonist. Oh hai Avatar-

And I LIKE Saoirse Ronan. :T

I have a feeling that John Carter’s flop has something to do with the title. The name John Carter it’s self just doesn’t interest me. The only way you could actually be interested about it just by hearing the title is if you already knew a lot about the subject before hand.

The failure of one movie with racist undertones causes the cancelation of another movie with racist undertones.

Progress?

 Interesting you say that – were you aware they deliberately changed the name to John Carter because “girls won’t see a movie with Mars in the title”?

Sounds to me like they deliberately made it generic, and now you’re suggesting it was TOO generic. Thought-provoking.

Bah.

Run a search for “Seven Dwarves” on Netflix streaming instead.  Yes, it’s in german, it’s also the best comedic take on the tale I’ve ever seen.  I’ve lost faith in Disney when it comes to anything.

Rihanna being awesome with ‘splosions aside, I do think John Carter was better than Battleship. They marketed it poorly and spent WAY too much money on it.  There were several scenes that were clumsily ordered, but it was by no means an awful movie.  I like the first book better and could take it more seriously, but there were some wonderful moments in the film, and I love what they did with Dejah!

 That was exactly the problem. They didn’t want “Princess” in the title since “boys wouldn’t like it.” And they didn’t want “Mars” in the title since “girls wouldn’t like it.” So they went with the most generic title possible and some vague trailers and then were surprised when it flopped.

Wait wait wait wait WAIT

The movie cost 250 million
The movie earned other 270 million worldwide

And they call it a flop?
Is that the infamous “We’re sucking so much at basic accounting that we will treat any movie which does not make a killing during the opening week-end a failure even if it ends up making more money than it cost” rule of thumb about hollywood executives?

 What irks me is why do an Asian spin on a European story I’ve read alot of fairytales from China Japan Malasia the Philipines the list goes on why not use one of those fairytales heck the Magic Brocade could be used as the hero finds a fairy girl who he marries in a castle you could make her a princess easily if thats the reason why they wanted to do snow white this way

John Carter has now earned 300 million worldwide, and THAT’S A FLOP!??! And not only a flop according to all of you Schadenfreude-addicted media types, “the biggest flop in movie history”???!!! Seriously?! 

BTW, it’s not that everyone went to see John Carter and hated it. People didn’t go because instead of giving the film a chance and forming their own opinions, they listened to you copy-cat media parrots who are in love with the negativity in all its forms.  You guys copied each other constantly about how bad the film was (most of you having not even seen it yourselves), and that is what killed John Carter in the US. 

The fact that Disney didn’t market it well and then threw John Carter under the bus (thank god Ross is gone) didn’t help either. Would you have gone to see John Carter if you were told “by the Academy Award Winning Director of Wall-E, Andrew Stanton” or maybe you might have been curious about it if you’d been told, “Based on the classic works by the creator of Tarzan.” or something similar? But did Disney do these oh so logical things to advertise the film? NO! Because they had the WRONG man in charge and now he’s gone! Too late…

Oh and lest we forget, John Carter did great overseas, too! 

And yes, I loved John Carter. I actually SAW the film (7 times)  and have been mystified by all of the negativity surrounding it because it truly is a great movie! 

Oh, and when it comes to Snow White, I think we’ll be done with her for awhile after 2 films already out recently about here. Give her a rest and stop blaming that status of an unrelated film on Disney’s future projects!!

 Whether or not a movie was a “flop” has less to do with facts and numbers than with building a narrative in the media. One newspaper / blog / magazine says it’s a flop, everyone starts parroting it, and soon it doesn’t matter how much money it actually makes.

 I didn’t go to the movie because I read the original story and didn’t like it at all (It’s available for free on the intertubes).  It was typical white savior crap, and sticking to the original plot was just pure laziness on Disney’s part, not historical accuracy. 

And I only read the original story *because* of all the talk here at TMS about it, and because of the famous author. 

It was written in 1911. Of course it’s a White Savior story. It’s also the inspiration for Superman, Dune, and many many other science fiction stories and characters. 

Ever read Tarzan? It’s racist beyond belief. But you can’t deny that it was influential. John Carter is historically important, and many of the properties you enjoy today wouldn’t exist without it. It’s OK that you didn’t like it, but it’s not laziness for Disney to honor the progenitor of so many stories.

I guess endless recent SnowWhite adaptations both in TV and in film have NOTHING to do with it and it is John Carter´s fault…again? That´s pure paranoia! John Carter IS an excellent movie. Period. It´s usually not such a good idea when similar themed movies are developed at the same time. And a 3rd movie after the not-so-stellar Mirror, Mirror might not be such a good idea int the first place. Enough of John Carter thrashing!

Give me a break!  Stop blaming John Carter for everything!  John Carter was actually THE best fantasy movie of the year, even better than the Avengers as much as I liked Avengers.  The problem is not John Carter, but Disney studio executives.  After reading tons of articles about the way John Carter failed to win its audience (bad marketing, a name change that doesn’t exactly inspire people who aren’t aware of the Edgar Rice Burroughs books have been blamed), the fact is that Bob Iger, as head of Disney, is more interested in the television output of Disney, the theme parks, and merchandising, than he is in the Disney brand of filmmaking.  He hired Rich Ross because Dick Cook was thought of as a big spender and Rich Ross and Bob Iger did everything they could to distance themselves from John Carter because THEY decided ahead of time that it wasn’t worth giving a first class merchandising effort.  Disney is banking on their acquired companies now to produce movies and they are more interested in being a distributor than a film producer.  They’ve given up on Disney itself and the let the Avengers, a Marvel Studios film that they now own and distribute do all their heavy lifting for them.  They make money off of other people’s work now and simply aren’t interested in greenlighting anything on their own.  

Anyway, John Carter WAS a worldwide popular success and COULD HAVE been closer to a commercial success if Disney hadn’t abandoned any substantial marketing for it, even with such a high budget.  You want to talk about a commercial AND popular flop in the making?  Its one of the VERY FEW that “spendthrift” Rich Ross actually gave the green light to in his tenure.  Johnny Depp’s and Gore Verbinski’s upcoming stinker, The Lone Ranger where Depp is reported to play a comedic Tonto and the Lone Ranger may or may not use his silver bullets at some point in time to kill werewolves!  And that was budgeted at $200 million!   

 I think it’s a fair point on both sides.

Stories like John Carter and Tarzan are influential, heck, they’re downright legendary, and I think it’ll be a long time coming for Disney to give up adapting stories the older generation grew up on.

However, I think it’s also fair to say, because the social climate (at least, in America) is so much different than it was decades ago, much of the populace is tired of this brand of story. There are other more inclusive and broad-minded tales we could be spending our time on nowadays.

 I agree the title was part of the problem — coupled with the fact that they named the movie after the character then gave the audience no reason to care about him in the trailers or ads. He was a non-entity (who could jump really high). Everything I knew about John Carter came from reading The Mary Sue and other sites, but even then I didn’t get the sense of an interesting character in the movie itself. I still haven’t seen it, but may rent it.

Completely with you on that. I was excited at the idea until I read who the star would be. How many times is this kind of thing going to happen in Hollywood?

I’m really tired of people beating up on John Carter for its “financial loss”. It has been said in many places that how studios calculate a financial success can be mystifying – I think someone claimed they didn’t make any money with Harry Potter. Whatever. John Carter did gross enough to pay for itself in the US and probably made more in Europe. This is not including the DVD sales and I am soooooo buying a deluxe version! I loved that movie.

And good grief, why can’t we have an Asian Snow White? And while were are at it, can everyone in the movie please be Asian too? Look, I see white people every day – I am one. I need more diversity in my entertainment. 

 Amen!

Wow, that was still kicking around? I remember there being news about that moving into pre-production in 2002! I had hoped they figured it was a bad idea and not left it stewing in developmental hell.

I’m not denying your premise, but what were the racist undertones you detected in John Carter?

Red Martians lay eggs? Eeeeeww.

Although I think Ariel beat her to the punch.

Even distributing Ghibli films?

The movie cost 250 million to MAKE. It probably cost another 200 million to market. And the studio doesn’t get all of that 20 million back. And even if they did, 20 million is a piddling profit for a multi billion dollar corporation.

From what I’ve read, Stanton had a lot of say over the marketing.

I think the worldwide gross of Avatar indicates that the majority of the populace isn’t too tired of that brand of story. Not that I wouldn’t support more of those broad-minded tales.

I couldn’t help wondering if calling it “John Carter of Barsoom” or even just “Barsoom” would have helped.

To me, it felt like a pretty textbook “White Messiah” story.

I’ll grant you the hero being white. But the “Red” Martians, who are more technologically/socially advanced than contemporary white Earthlings, are also played by white people (okay, Lynn Collins has a bit of Cherokee, but still), and the Tharks, who don’t fit into any comfortable analogy of oppressed indigenous peoples the way the Na’vi did, are also played by white people. The only racial undertone I can detect is a complete lack of racial undertones.

The “White Messiah” doesn’t really have much to do with WHO the other culture is, but that it is another culture.  (It has more to the superiority of the white euro-american than the inferiority of a specific “other.”)

So whether the “other” culture is based in reality (Dances With Wolves, Last Samurai) meant to symbolize a real culture (Avatar) or a completely fictional-not-based-in-reality culture (supposedly John Carter), they’re still being saved by the white euro-american.  It doesn’t matter what race of people played or voiced the other, it’s still “White dude saves…”

I suppose you’re right. I guess it’s just that his Euro-American superiority strikes me as more emphasized than his racial superiority. How great Americans are, not how great white people are. As far as Edgar Rice Burroughs goes, it’s certainly less racially charged than Tarzan.