One Year Later: Looking at JOHN CARTER and the Making of a Cult Classic

One year ago, as of tomorrow, a major motion picture that Hollywood had been gestating for over eight decades had reached fruition and was released on March 9, 2012.  It was JOHN CARTER, and it became one of the biggest cinematic financial failures in recent memory.
The story was adapted from the Barsoom series of pulp novels, the lesser-known great work of American author Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose Tarzan of the Apes series has had much greater fortunes in enduring cultural magnitude.  However, the Barsoom series, which was originally published as a magazine serial called "Under the Moons of Mars" in 1912 and then compiled into the first book of a series, A Princess of Mars, in 1917, was arguably the most influential science fiction work of the 20th century.  It inspired many of the works of Arthur C. Clark and Ray Bradbury, and is the artistic ancestor of films like STAR WARS (1977) and AVATAR (2009) and the Joss Whedon-created television series FIREFLY.  [On a momentary tangent:  AVATAR, released in 2009, invited many plot comparisons to a 1990 film, DANCES WITH WOLVES, which, in turn, had received comparisons to LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, released in 1962.  The first Barsoom stories "Under the Moons of Mars" were first published in 1912, and yet, they all share the same basics of plot.  However, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is adapted from actual historical events which ranged from 1917-1935, beginning 5 years after Burroughs had written what was basically the same story, but on Mars.]

1917 dust-jacket for A Princess of Mars

 A Princess of Mars, the material from which the bulk of JOHN CARTER was adapted, tells the story of one John Carter, who served on the side of the Confederacy as a calvaryman in the American Civil War before moving west, as a man without a cause, to prospect for gold.  In the American frontier, he comes upon a mystical cave from which he astonished to find himself transported to a strange land he later discovers is actually Mars, known to its inhabitants as Barsoom.  He is first discovered by the Tharks, a race of giant green-skinned creatures whose civilization is built on a savage, might-makes-right tribal nature, and their chief, known as a Jeddak, takes him in after recognizing him as a valuable asset to their warlike culture, because on Mars, Carter has supernatural strength.  He also meets the "red man" civilization of Helium, an intellectual society, and rescues their princess, Dejah Thoris, during an attack on her escort by the aggressive red man tribe of Zodanga.  A romance ensues, and Carter becomes the Jeddak of the Tharks and unites the warring clans of Barsoom for common cause.
A Series of Failures
The first attempt by Hollywood to adapt the Barsoom stories began in 1931, when Bob Clampett, best known for his work as a director for "Looney Toons" and creating Porky Pig and Tweety Bird, approached Burroughs with the idea of making an animated feature based on the Barsoom books.  Burroughs responded positively to the idea, but when Clampett had completed a test footage reel for the would-be film, reactions were resoundingly negative, and the idea of a human man on Mars was deemed too outlandish for the crucial Midwest American market to accept.  In the 1980's, when the film studios were all scrambling for a project that could compete with the overwhelming success of STAR WARS, the industry's biggest proponent of family entertainment, Walt Disney Studios, was especially flustered at the success of George Lucas' sci-fi mega-hit as it appealed to the family audiences they longed for while the studio was on the verge of collapse.  Disney bought the rights to the Barsoom series, and DIE HARD (1988) director John McTiernan sought to direct, but the attempt collapsed when the filmmakers realized that technology had not yet caught up to where it needed to be for the film.  Although Disney executive Jeffery Katzenberg continued to hold out hope for the would-be film, eventually the rights reverted back to the Burroughs Estate.  Then, in 2004, Paramount had acquired the rights and arranged for SIN CITY director Robert Rodriguez to helm the project, but after Rodriguez had a falling out with the Directors Guild of America, he was no longer eligible to direct the film, and Jon Favreau, fresh off ZATHURA (2005), was brought on board.  In the end though, Paramount opted not to renew the rights to Barsoom in 2006 and would instead focus their efforts on the anticipated STAR TREK reboot, while Favreau was picked up by Marvel Studios to direct IRON MAN (2008).
The Rise and Fall
Enter Andrew Stanton, an accomplished Pixar director who had written and directed FINDING NEMO (2003), Pixar's biggest hit at the time before TOY STORY 3 smashed its record in 2010, and was fresh off the critically-acclaimed blockbuster WALL-E (2008), who used his considerable clout to lobby hard at Disney for the studio to reacquire the rights for him to direct as his live-action debut.  Although reportedly apprehensive at first, Disney executives eventually green-lighted the project for development and direction by Stanton.
Initially conceived as part one of a trilogy, the film began production in 2008 as JOHN CARTER OF MARS with A Princess of Mars as the primary source material.  Principal photography took place primarily in the southern "red-rocked" region of Utah, a favorite location for Hollywood films set in space, and especially Mars.  In 2011, Disney announced a controversial title change to JOHN CARTER, which was especially poorly-received in fanboy circles and smacked of corporate insincerity, and although Stanton defended the change as reflecting the origin story nature of the film in which the character is "becoming John Carter [of Mars]", but speculation has persisted that the change pertained to an alleged stigma of "Mars" as commercially inaccessible, especially when the change came soon after the Disney-produced MARS NEEDS MOMS (2011) bombed hard at the box-office.

The

Even with a little-known cast (costing considerably less), the production costs reached the astronomical heights of an estimated $250 million (for reference, the famously-expensive AVATAR (2009) was estimated to cost $237 million), plus marketing and distribution expenses at about $100 million.  The costs can largely be attributed to the hefty special effects factor, sets and extensive post-production costs of creating a sci-fi epic.  The film was slated for release on March 9, 2012, March being the typical month for releasing such big-budget but unproved film properties.  While major franchises are can frequently find a desired market in the peak summer months, and in some cases, the Holiday Season time-frame between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, "summer blockbuster-esque" films that studios hope may blossom into potential franchises but lack an established fanbase are usually released in the "franchise testing ground" of March, when the market is weary of the cinematic garbage dump represented by January and February, but the lack of significant competition greatly reduces the financial risk that going up against the heavy-hitters of summer gambles on.  On its opening day of March 9th, JOHN CARTER took the top spot at the box office with $9.81 million, but even at #1, the take was too small to escape the chill in the blood at the offices of the Walt Disney Company.  By that Sunday, JOHN CARTER had failed to beat THE LORAX, the previous week's biggest movie, and had only scraped together an embarrassing $30.2 million.  After a week on the market, analysts predicted a $100-$150 million write-off for Disney, but while the film sunk spectacularly in the domestic market, the international market provided some small comfort as it stood at #1 internationally for two consecutive weeks that would eventually help the film recuperate a small profit margin with an international gross of $282,778,100, but at the conclusion of 2012's first financial quarter, Disney took a devastating $160 million hit.  Studio Chairman Rich Ross, whose tenure had seen the billion dollar successes of ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010) and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES (2011) since his promotion in 2009, was forced to resign the month following JOHN CARTER, and it was alleged that after Ross sought to shift blame for JOHN CARTER toward Pixar, the immensely powerful executives at Pixar sought his departure with extreme prejudice.
Such are the stories in which cult classics are forged.  Despite receiving mixed reviews with a 51% Tomatometer on RottenTomatoes.com, the film quickly developed a relatively small, but devoted fanbase and staunch defenders.  In today's system of vast international distribution, cross marketing and long-term home format distributions, there is no longer such a thing as a box office flop as it was once known.  Hardly any film actually loses money as the sources of income are so numerous, which offers at least a partial explanation to today's colossal event films that cost hundreds of millions of dollars and often make a hefty sum in return.  However, there are still flops, but of a different kind.  While long-term reimbursement is better than none, industries require short-term reimbursement too, especially on big products that are costly to produce, if they're to continue their output.  So even if every film makes a profit eventually, the films that fail to provide what was promised are financially disastrous.  But when all the odds are stacked against a film (or many other things for that matter), those in favor of the film will instinctively step up their support and the result is a cult following of fans who invest more strongly in a film to make up for the lacking quantity.
Returning to Barsoom
I was one of the relative few to see JOHN CARTER on its opening day, March 9th, 2012, in 3D no less.  I was only familiar with the book series because of the film, taking note of it as a source material as production proceeded, but I had not read any of the books, nor did I plan to until I had seen the film.  I make a point of not reading a book if it has an upcoming major film adaptation, because for me, the most important thing is film.  When a person reads a book before seeing the film adaptation, the person's imagination forms its own realizations and makes emotional connections to certain elements, and when the film fails to meet the mind's eye's expectations, even a great film can be rendered as a disappointment.  Watching the film first on the other hand, I can see the trails of the filmmakers as they have taken the written medium and morphed it into cinema.  Reading the book after seeing the film is like seeing two versions of the film, with neither at war with each other because my personal connections can't clash those of another.
As I sat in the theater that afternoon, the swashbuckling fantasy-adventure that unfolded before my eyes was an imperfect thrill.  I took note of the occasional lull of pacing, but I was willing to make allowances, especially for a sort of film so rare in today's Hollywood.  Walt Disney Pictures is the only studio that currently has a regular output of swashbuckling adventures, even if it's rarely more than one a year.  It's a genre built on old-fashioned thrills and fun, but even when other studios make a swashbuckler, their usually very weighty, like THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY, and that's fine, but I crave a light-hearted, swashbuckling frolic on occasion.  I was just thrilled to swordplay, aerial battles and a gladiatorial-styled arena sequence with giant white apes.  Then I went a second time the next week.

Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris and Kitsch as John Carter

Director Andrew Stanton talking about... stuff.

On subsequent viewings of a film, you watch the film in a very different way.  You already have a general knowledge of how the events will unfold and rather than watching a film, you find yourself studying it, looking for details and nuances.  Usually, a second viewing will feel faster paced as the suspense of waiting for what will happen next has been minimized.  Upon my second viewing, JOHN CARTER felt longer.  The pacing issues became more apparent and there were long stretches of film that seemed empty.  The novelty of space swordfighting and splattering of blue blood had waned, and what was left was a flashy but vapid shell of a would-be swashbuckler.  Most representative of this vapidity is Taylor Kitsch (a wonderfully appropriate name for an action movie star), a young Friday Night Lights-alumni who had the ghastly misfortune to headline another major box office disappointment, BATTLESHIP, in the same year, although that did work out a bit better with the overseas market.  Kitsch is an actor who looks the part of John Carter perfectly, but his "characterization" is so disappointingly lifeless that the emotional arc Stanton and company have worked out for him just falls flat.  The script, by Stanton, fellow Pixar man Mark Andrews (co-director on BRAVE (2012)) and acclaimed author Michael Chabon, fashioned in the Pixar style of development, went through many revisions and story meetings over a long course of time for trial and error, to eventually be whittled into a polished script, but for whatever reason, it didn't work this time.  Perhaps the Pixar magic had dwindled.  They had just come off of their first poorly-reviewed film ever, CARS 2 (2011), and their next picture, BRAVE, turned out to be a decent but lackluster film.  For whatever reason, JOHN CARTER's script was too convoluted and too uneven.  There were some who were skeptical about Stanton's animation approach to big-budget live action, and some who addressed the issues in the script, but they were dismissed.  According to the Pixar formula, any story dilemmas were easily revised in the animation stage, but when playing that kind of game with live action, you end up with lengthy and expensive re-shoots, and JOHN CARTER got two.
The convoluted, hard-to-follow story was a major issue for many viewers.  I've rarely had difficulty following movies that most found confusing in terms of plotlines and such, and it was much of an issue for me on JOHN CARTER either, but such things did present problems even to me.  After seeing the film the first time, I read A Princess of Mars, a highly-entertaining, if dated, book, and realized that, although the main storyline was adapted from the one book, there were certain elements, primarily the Therns, a race of mystical beings who manipulate civilizations into their own destruction, that I must assume were integrated from the later books.  They were mentioned in the first book, but they don't present themselves in the way they do in the film, and I had believed their part overplayed in the film, and sometimes resulting in overcomplexity, but Stanton had a trilogy in mind, and presumably designed the script accordingly.  Also worth noting is that the leader of the Therns, Matai Shang, is played by Mark Strong, who has recently cropped up as the villain in very fun-looking movies like SHERLOCK HOLMES (2009) and ROBIN HOOD (2010), which turn out to be bland disappointments.  There's probably no connection there, but it's peculiar.  Maybe he's an evil genie...anyway...
By the time I saw JOHN CARTER a third time, a few months later on Blu Ray, there was very little in the way of entertainment left.  At little over two hours long, it felt like four.  All that was left was a somewhat interesting exhibit on a story that had been unofficially and loosely adapted many times previously with more success.  However, watching just a few days ago, several months later, it wasn't as boring as before, but it lacked a distinct flavor and Kitsch is still cripplingly bland.  However, the film has garnered a strong cult status and has many a staunch defender (although I'm curious how many times they've watched it), especially in various fanboy circles and movie magazines/websites.  It seems in many cases though, that most don't think it's so much a great movie, as they believe it doesn't deserve the reputation, that it's better than you'd think and that if Disney would only produce a sequel, it would likely improve.  Soon after the devastating box office reports came in and plans for sequels were nixed, petitions and groups appeared across the internet, clamoring for a sequel, and now you get a lot of retrospectives on why JOHN CARTER is as bad as you remembered.  Of course the film isn't as bad as the losses it sustained suggest, but the business practices and production were that bad.  There are currently no plans at Disney to produce a sequel to JOHN CARTER.