Disney’s John Carter was one of it’s biggest – if not THE biggest – box office disasters in it’s history. Universally panned by film critics, the film went on to lose $200 million.
I liked this film.
Sure, there are issues with pacing and some of the ultra-high budget VFX work could have been better (compositing and lighting issues mainly, but I have no complaints over the creature work, of which I was very impressive with). John Carter (of Mars) is nonetheless a great film – it’s entertaining with some strong performances from the likes of Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris and Mark Strong as Matai Shang. Samantha Morton and William DeFoe as Solar and Tars Tarkas are great too.
Like the Chronicles of Narnia, I see Disney dropping any further attempts to make future films based on these books. Poor old C.S. Lewis and Edgar Rice Burroughs – both now abandoned by Disney. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that some other studio couldn’t pick it up. I’d have no complaints if Andrew Stanton were to write and direct them – apart from removing the “of Mars” from the title, I can’t see why he should get full blame for this film’s failure. He did the best job he could.
If I had to be picky, it’d probably have to be the source material that may have caused some of the problems. People to have to remember that it’s a bugger to fit a book-shaped object into a film sized hole. You’ll lose stuff, and you’ll gain stuff, just to be able to get a coherent story.
I make no apologies for liking this film. I’d be very happy to buy the Blu-Ray as a consequence of this.
