GubernatorFan wrote:I'd actually love hear more on that topic (Dune, John Carter, Star Wars, Disney), MBAM.
Well, I may need to put on my tinfoil, conspiracy hat, and start ranting, but ok. At the time the John Carter movie came out, Disney was very fresh from its then frighteningly expensive acquisiton of the Star Wars license. The number of things that Lucas "borrowed" from John Carter (and Dune, and Flash Gordon, etc) was substantial. I do not begrudge Lucas for this in the slightest, artistically it was a fully legitimate creative act of fusion with respect for his inspirations and predecessors. But at the studio "branding" level, it is argued that they perceived the forthcoming John Carter film might devalue the Star Wars brand, if people (knowing that John Carter originally came first) saw it as somehow lessening Star Wars or making it less original. So once Disney paid $4.05 Billion for Star Wars, and at the same time took over control for the near-finished John Carter film, the argument is that Disney (notwithstanding the loss it would take on John Carter) intentionally set it up to fail.
IMHO John Carter was pretty good (not absolutely great) and it should have performed much better than it did. It is a proven fact that Disney slashed the promotional budget to mere fraction of what had been intended, and much less for a movie of its kind. The "official story" is that Disney supposedly slashed the promotional and advertising budget at the last minute based on poor performance in the test screening in the last month before it came out.
Here's some proof for my conviction that actually the deliberate decision to sabotage John Carter was made inevitably long before these "test screenings" in the last month. Something that you and I and all our friends at OSF are keenly aware of (but critics and media writers wouldn't normally know) is that the development curve for Toys must be at least 6 months to a year in advance. Toys would be inevitable for a Disney movie of that size, especially one so Star Wars like. We know that basically it was the sale of Toys from SW New Hope that made it possible to pay for making Empire Strikes Back. In the normal course John Carter Toys would have been inevitable. In my mind the fact that Disney didn't license any John Carter Toys whatsoever proves that they had cut the movie loose months or a year before supposedly it was some poor performing test screenings in the last month that made them pull the plug, and send John Carter out with virtually no advertising. Normally by 2012 standards there would have been John Carter toys in the stores a month or two before the opening, necessarily unaffacted by test screening or anything else in the last month. What follows is IMHO the only explanation that fits the facts. John Carter didn't flounder, John Carter was murdered. And as the Latins say about solving crimes, Cui Bono? Who benefits? The Star Wars Brand does, by comparison. Endeth the rant.