The biggest box-office bomb in history
The amount of money spent on Hollywood films can truly be eye-watering. Forgetting the upfront cost of making a picture, millions are pumped into marketing and distribution too. So, when a film like the 2012 effort John Carter is estimated to be one of the most expensive films ever made, it makes it all the worse that the big-budget Disney film was also the biggest box-office failure in history.
Directed by Andrew Stanton, a prominent Disney director with a list of hugely successful and well-regarded Pixar films under his belt, John Carter is based on the first of the Barsoom novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs at the turn of the 20th century.
It follows the titular character of John Carter, a veteran of the American Civil War who is magically transported to another world, swapping the American frontier for a Martian Wild West. Called ‘Barsoom’ by the inhabitants, the planet of Mars proves to be a complex society in the throes of violent political turmoil, and Carter is caught up in the conflict between two warring factions.
Many halted attempts had been made to adapt the books for the big screen, with studios understandably assuming that the epic scale and science fiction setting of the series would make for a hugely successful movie. By the early 2000s, the Burroughs estate still held the rights to the franchise. However, with the backing of the global behemoth that is Disney, director Stanton was able to secure the novel for his first live-action feature.
Looking back over a decade later, it seems like from the moment of conception, the film was destined for failure. Every conscious of their dollars, Disney has been known to let marketing creep into every aspect of a film’s production, including its title. This was famously seen two years prior to John Carter with Tangled (2010). Whilst a critical success, the studio was widely derided as cynical and sexist for choosing to rename their Rapunzel adaptation; the theory is that they did this to place less emphasis on its female protagonists and attract a wider male audience.
John Carter was no different; the choice to change the title from the book’s original, The Princess of Mars, was most likely made for the same reasons, but it ultimately meant their new film name had absolutely nothing to suggest what the film was about. With information on the new Disney film’s source material being suppressed, audiences had only the posters and trailers to go by. Considering that future franchises such as Star Wars and Dune had so cleverly assimilated the aesthetics and themes of the Barsoom series into their own worlds, this ended up backfiring on the studio, with the film being slated as derivative and unoriginal.
Ultimately, the film completely tanked. Not helped by the bloated story and generally tepid performances turned in by the actors, John Carter caused Disney to haemorrhage money, losing them a jaw-dropping $200million and earning its reputation for being one of the most gigantic failures in cinema history.
