Predict-A-Flop

[kitsofan34]

I think I agree. I've got a bit of a bad feeling about it. I suspect it'll do well enough at the box office initially but there's so much hype around it and so much for it to live up to that I predict it'll be a bit of a let down and yet another film on the scrap heap of the Alien franchise. The fact that Mike from Neighbours is apparently playing the space jockey says it all. I'm getting cold feet. I sincerely hope I'm wrong though.

It's a little silly to criticze a film's casting when it's got Charlize Theron, Naomi Repace (apologies for spelling) Idris Elba and Michael Fassbender in it.

In relation to Will Smith rejecting Django Unchained, I heard it was due to the frequency of the word 'n**ger'. Not sure how reliable that is though.


Next December, World War Z, The Hobbit, Skyfall AND Django Unchained are coming out.

[Bad Ambassador]

It's a little silly to criticze a film's casting when it's got Charlize Theron, Naomi Repace (apologies for spelling) Idris Elba and Michael Fassbender in it.

In relation to Will Smith rejecting Django Unchained, I heard it was due to the frequency of the word 'n**ger'. Not sure how reliable that is though.


Next December, World War Z, The Hobbit, Skyfall AND Django Unchained are coming out.

Skyfall comes out in October over here, and I doubt that DU and WWZ will be out for Christmas. Or that WWZ bears any resemblence to the book, if what I've heard is true.

Meanwhile, JCo'M has taken less money on its opening day than Prince of Persia, though that had a summer advantage. Eddie Murphy is also looking to have his third megaflop in a row with A Thousand Words, meaning that he won't have had a live-action starring role in anything making more than $6m on opening weekend since Norbit in 2007.

[vrailaine]

...Norbit made $160 million?!

[Small Man Big Horse]

Meanwhile, JCo'M has taken less money on its opening day than Prince of Persia, though that had a summer advantage. Eddie Murphy is also looking to have his third megaflop in a row with A Thousand Words, meaning that he won't have had a live-action starring role in anything making more than $6m on opening weekend since Norbit in 2007.

Apart from Tower Heist, which took $24 million on it's opening weekend last year, and around $78 million overall. Which whilst not a great success, isn't too hideous.

...Norbit made $160 million?!

I presumed you were joking, but after checking wiki, it seems so. And according to his page, Murphy is still the no.2 biggest box office success of all time. Which leads me to conclude that the world no longer makes any sense.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

WWZ bears

There's a Saturday morning cartoon spin-off I'd watch.

[The Region Legion]

Hunger Games is going to clean up - on a recent visit to the cinema with a 10-strong gang of friends and acquaintances it was the only trailer that didn't provoke active derision from either us or the room generally. Not to say it will be a good movie, but it's an excellent trailer and the acting doesn't look too awful. I think it's pretty affecting when our heroine volunteers herself for the kid, as well as when the crowds raise their hands in the air for her. It's evocative of something much more powerful than it will actually be.

John Carter is absolutely fucked, that was just a hideous Avatar wannabe and everyone knows it.

I can't believe I've not heard of Mirror Mirror yet but my god that looks like it's going to crash and burn in the most spectacular fashion. It's very dangerous to have a character announce that someone is the most beautiful woman in the world, especially when you've chosen someone who looks like a Romanian beggar to play her.

[Bad Ambassador]

Apart from Tower Heist, which took $24 million on it's opening weekend last year, and around $78 million overall. Which whilst not a great success, isn't too hideous.

I thought that he was playing second fiddle to Ben Stiller or member of an ensemble rather than a starring role in that.

[Ignatius_S]

...it's glorious to see an old school pulpy adventure which actually works.  The action is fun, the leads appealing, and it has a retro-matinee vibe that's hard to resist.
Really puzzled as to why the ccritics seem to have taken against it.

Good enough for me – sounds pretty much what I hoped for, albeit at a heftier price tag.

Re: critics – there's been so much bad word of mouth about it being a flop (specifically one of the greatest flops of all time) it just feels like it's a film that critics feel safe putting the boot into and will do for the sheer hell of it.

[phantom_power]

John Carter hasn't done well domestically but it has performed better than expected overseas. I doubt it will be a flop in the true sense of not recouping its budget, though it may be tarred with that brush when judged by the american-centric media.

As for the reviews I have seen mainly positive ones from the sites I read. I would certainly be interested in watching it and think it is probably far from a "hideous Avatar wannabe"

[Ignatius_S]

John Carter hasn't done well domestically but it has performed better than expected overseas. I doubt it will be a flop in the true sense of not recouping its budget, though it may be tarred with that brush when judged by the american-centric media....

Those overseas figures are rather interesting - thanks for the heads-up.

[phantom_power]

Those overseas figures are rather interesting - thanks for the heads-up.

It is similar to the aforementioned Prince of Persia, which was considered a flop in America but made a shit-ton around the world

[Small Man Big Horse]

Hunger Games is going to clean up - on a recent visit to the cinema with a 10-strong gang of friends and acquaintances it was the only trailer that didn't provoke active derision from either us or the room generally. Not to say it will be a good movie, but it's an excellent trailer and the acting doesn't look too awful. I think it's pretty affecting when our heroine volunteers herself for the kid, as well as when the crowds raise their hands in the air for her. It's evocative of something much more powerful than it will actually be.

I think you're right on the money front, but the trailer didn't impress me at all, it just felt like an annoying emo-esque Running Man / Battle Royale. Whereas I thought Mirror Mirror looked quite fun, it's not my type of movie but Julia Roberts is clearly having a lot of fun hamming it up, and it seems to have a pretty packed plot, and I'd be surprised if it didn't make a lot of money.

I thought that he was playing second fiddle to Ben Stiller or member of an ensemble rather than a starring role in that.

Ah, I didn't know that, I was just going by his wiki page. Which was stupid of me, admittedly...

[vrailaine]

I'd have to guess Eddie Murphy damaged that films revenue, actually.

[kitsofan34]

Murphy's latest film currently has 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. 0%

[Feralkid]

I still can't believe Murphy's career didn't end with Pluto Nash.  When did he last do anything worthwhile?  Bowfinger I suppose.

[SavageHedgehog]

I think Murphy's an example of an actor who has had more damage from a hit than his flops. Nobody has seen Pluto Nash, Imagine That or A Thousand Words, so nobody knows (or cares) how bad they are. Lots of people saw Norbit and still resent him for it.

[Famous Mortimer]

Murphy's latest film currently has 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. 0%

It's also one of those films which was made several years ago yet sat unreleased on a studio shelf, presumably as Murphy's career has been in the toilet, career-wise, for a long time. It was rush-re-released when "Tower Heist" did well and he was supposed to be presenting the Oscars...I imagine the company kinda wish they'd never bothered now. Kinda odd to think that for how much I adored his films as a youngster, he's only done one good film ("Life") in the last 23 years.

I wonder why they changed "John Carter of Mars" to "John Carter". I know the advertising spends millions to dispel this sort of notion, but "John Carter" sounds like a legal thriller, or a worthy drama about some fighter for Irish independence. It looks right up my street too, but the reviews aren't exactly filling me with the desire to chuck my money away. Saying that, I still want to see "One For The Money", as I can just remember the books while staring at Katherine Heigl in tight jeans. Hey, did I write that out loud?

[CaledonianGonzo]

Apparently the name change was as a result of Disney execs getting cold feet when Mars Needs Moms stiffed.

[Paaaaul]

The '...Of Mars' bit did badly with focus groups, because people don't like to think they are watching science fiction.
Apparently people enjoyed the science fiction film more when they weren't reminded that they were watching a science fiction film by a name that sounds like the name of a science fiction film.
People are idiots.

[Nik Drou]

The first of the books was called A Princess of Mars. In a recent interview, Andrew Stanton rationalised the name change, somewhat regretfully, to the effect of "Men wouldn't see a movie with 'princess' in the title. Women wouldn't see a movie with 'Mars' in the title". The Mars Needs Moms connection seems plausible, although the makers of Rango weren't bothered by it sounding an awful lot like Delgo.

It occurred to me yesterday that a reasonable compromise would be to call it 'John Carter of Earth'. You avoid the apparently fatal 'M word', plus you imply a cosmic scale and significance without alienating people (no pun intended). He's referred to as 'John Carter of Earth' in the trailer, after all. Not perfect, I know, but at least it evokes more by itself than a guy called John Carter sitting on a bench going "hello!"

I've changed my mind about Mirror, Mirror. It'll get terrible reviews but still be a hit and possibly do more box office than Snow White and the Huntsman.

[phes]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17442200 - JOHN CARTER

Good predictions chaps on page 1.

Kermode reserved for this one of his now copyrighted 'rants',  but Half in the Bag were appreciative and more open minded about its prospect of eventually finding an audience, despite the losses. I may yet go to watch it, especially if I can find an empty cinema mid-week.

John Carter hasn't done well domestically but it has performed better than expected overseas. I doubt it will be a flop in the true sense of not recouping its budget, though it may be tarred with that brush when judged by the american-centric media.

Why is it that a flop in the true sense of the word only includes the filmmaking budget. Disney spent over £100 000 000 promoting this. Now there is an epic failure.

[Ignatius_S]

...Why is it that a flop in the true sense of the word only includes the filmmaking budget. Disney spent over £100 000 000 promoting this. Now there is an epic failure.

I suspect it's a matter of opinion about what is an epic failure. Something that took very little money at the box office (and might be just terrible); or something that put a lot of  bums on seats and which might have turned a profit if  the production budget hadn't been so crazy?

Mars Needs Moms bombed at the cinema, taking less than $40 million worldwide – the production budget was $150 million and there was a big marketing push, so Disney wasn't skimping there (I've read one claim that it was $25 million, but most reports indicated rather more and I'm little dubious that it should be such a small figure – it's usually 50% of the production budget at the very least). In ten days, John Carter has taken about $180 million – so that's about 4.5 times the box office gross that Mars Needs Moms did, in about 10% of the time.

Although John Carter has been performing very well outside the States, studios take a smaller amount of the box office gross overseas (around 15%, opposed to about 55% in North America). I assume that's the reasons why Disney has said it expects to lose $200 million (but what's that these days?). So in some ways,  it could be said that its financial failure will be less about the number of people going to see the film, but where those people are from.

[Famous Mortimer]

It's the sort of film that will sell well to TV, though, so although they might be a while, they're going to recoup their money on this one eventually. Is it Waterworld that's now turning a healthy profit for its studio?

[mobias]

John Carter hasn't done well domestically but it has performed better than expected overseas. I doubt it will be a flop in the true sense of not recouping its budget,

I think its now officially one of the biggest cinematic flops of all time  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17442200

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Despite seeing numerous adverts for John Carter it never really explained what the story was. People like having some idea what's going to be going on. Also, the actual premise itself seemed less than gripping.

You could make about ten amazing versions The Subtle Knife one could make for that money, so it is a lamentable waste.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Well - the book it's based on is pretty famous.  Maybe the gambled on 'brand recognition' the way they might do on something like 'Tarzan' and it simply wasn't there.

Michael Moorcock loved it, apparently, which actually makes me think I'll check it out at some point.

[copylight]

John Carter reminds me of that wonderful film gentleman broncos, inspiring me to rewatch the latter and not download buy a ticket to the former.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdpFpfIBkXc

[CaledonianGonzo]

The thing that must be a little puzzling for the execs is that Avatar - which substantially rips off the plot of A Princess Of Mars - is the biggest film of all time while this one - which love it or hate it seems pretty much cut from the same sort of cloth - has dropped an unprecedented clanger.

[Nuclear Optimism]

Everyone was talking about Avatar for ages, yet for all the supposed marketing push for John Carter, I only heard about it very close to the release, and that was just a crappy poster on a bus stop (featuring what looked like a cross between a gorilla and a hippo. I honestly thought it was a goofy ad for an energy drink or deodorant or something the first time I saw it).

There was no sense of build-up or anticipation whatsoever, more a case of "By the way, this thing's coming out pretty soon". Where did the $100 million marketing budget go? Have been endless TV spots and things that I've completely missed?

[Dead kate moss]

There has been promotion, but like the title-fudge, they have shied away from explaining what the film was about. The problem I think is nobody will believe any of this stuff could happen on Mars, it might as well be set on the moon. Probably should have said fuck the source material (as if Hollywood would ever say that...) and set it on a distant made-up planet (and cast Will Smith).

Also Harry Knowles worked on it at one point, he's the kiss of death.

Anyway, the obituary was written in advance for this it seems. Been ages since a juicy mega-flop story.