What Went Wrong With John Carter Revealed In New Interviews

The cast and crew of John Carter open up about what went wrong with the live-action movie adaptation in new interviews for its 10th anniversary. Based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars, the first in his Barsoom series of novels, the sci-fi adventure centers on the titular former Confederate army captain who finds himself transported to Mars and is thrust into the midst of a civil war between the various kingdoms on the alien planet. Taylor Kitsch led the cast of John Carter alongside Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Willem Dafoe, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Dominic West and James Purefoy.

Attempts to bring Burroughs’ novels to life on the big screen languished in development hell for nearly a century, going as far back as the 1930s, before Disney would eventually acquire the rights to the series in the late ’00s with Finding Nemo‘s Andrew Stanton leading the charge to adapt the sci-fi world. Stanton would partner with fellow Pixar vet Mark Andrews and Spider-Man 2 co-writer Michael Chabon to pen the script for the film, with production running from late 2009 to mid-2010. John Carter would release in theaters in early 2012 to generally mixed reviews from critics and a devastating box office debut, grossing only $284 million against its reported $350 million total budget.

In honor of the film’s 10th anniversary, the cast and crew of John Carter spoke with The Wrap to offer insight on what went wrong with Disney’s live-action adaptation. Cinematographer Dan Mindel cited the decision to shoot on studio sets instead of the Southwest US to “save a buck” was a “huge error” that affected the film’s realistic look, which star Lynn Collins agreed with as the London studio resulted in people getting “moody” as they “were all away from our families,” whereas the Four Corners portion of the shoot saw “everyone [having] a blast.” Co-writer Michael Chabon also cited the failure of the Jason Momoa-led Conan the Barbarian as a problem for the film, with Disney execs “grappling with the fact of this movie that none of them understood, or cared about, or didn’t mean anything to them,” which subsequently resulted in a change in the film’s marketing and title from John Carter of Mars to simply John Carter. Director Andrew Stanton also confessed fault with being “very involved” with the marketing campaign, noting the title change wasn’t his call but that he accepted the studio’s suggestion and admitted having been unaware of the bad buzz surrounding the film in the lead up to its release.

Much of the cast and crew’s explanations for what went wrong with John Carter ultimately proved to be a clear indicator of the real problem with the film, which was that of an ever-shifting vision for the adaptation. Despite the amount of money being put into the making of the film itself, the marketing for it was a frequent point of criticism before its release, with many notably pointing out the trailers’ lack of mentioning the legacy behind Burroughs’ novels or Chabon and Stanton’s landmark credits in the film industry. Additionally, Disney didn’t take the normal marketing approach they generally take for their large tentpole releases, namely plenty of merchandising, targeted ads in domestic Disney theme parks or primetime specials on any of Disney’s TV networks to help explain the history of the source material and character.

All of the elements of what went wrong with John Carter would lead to its eventual downfall, with the film resulting in a $200 million writedown for Disney and becoming one of the biggest box office bombs. This failure would lead to the cancellation of Stanton’s planned trilogy, the subsequent installments titled Gods of Mars and Warlord of Mars, and seemingly shut down Kitsch’s potential as a movie leading man when paired with the critically derided Battleship adaptation and lead to Collins taking a brief hiatus from Hollywood and fire her management at the time. The two stars have since found better success on the small screen with roles in The Walking Dead, Bosch, Manhunt: Unabomber, Waco and True Detective while Stanton would return to the animated genre for the critical and commercial success Finding Dory.

Source: The Wrap

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Grant Hermanns
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Grant Hermanns is a News Writer, Interviewer and Hiring Manager for Screen Rant, having joined the team in early 2021. Way back in 2015 while still in his college days, Grant got his start in the entertainment journalism industry with creator-friendly site Moviepilot until it shuttered nearly three years later. From there he joined the staff at ComingSoon.net and was its Associate Editor prior to coming over to Screen Rant.

To say he’s a lover of film and television would be an understatement and when he’s not mass consuming either you can find him exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends or slowly making his way through his gaming backlog.

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