John Carter Forum

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So after listening to the latest Behind the Screened Door (12/05/11) I came out a little baffled after hearing Rorie and Alex's small discussion on the newest John Carter (of Mars) trailer. I could have just taken it the wrong way or misunderstood but it seemed that both of their arguments (before Taylor Kitsch was even brought up) were that since no one has probably read the books now that they don't understand why it's going to be a movie or should. I am a 26 years old man and I grew up loving pulp from the first time I listened my father's cassette's of The Shadow radio programs as a kid. This was further fueled by things like comic books, Indiana Jones, The Rocketeer, and my further spiral into vintage pulp and noir material. John Carter basically started this and even started the whole "sword and planet" genre. I would argue that before the Lord of the Rings movies that the vast majority of viewers (some nerds included) had never read the books or AT THE MOST read only The Hobbit (or seen the animation) and they would never have correlated the two. In fact unless a movie trailer specifically points it out I would say many movies based on books (outside of something like the Twilight series or Harry Potter) are unknown to the majority of viewers as having come from a book or series. I don't know, I just felt it was a weird conversation to be having let alone listening to on a podcast dedicated to film and television. This is the equivalent of "Iron Man isn't an A list character, so why is there a MARVEL comic book movie coming out for him" or hell how many people knew Blade was a comic book character before the cool movies?

Sword and planet genre? I've never heard of this genre before.
 
And I don't think they're trying to say that you can't make a film out of books that nobody's read. But you probably shouldn't bank a 350 million dollar production on some books that nobody's read. I am a 26 year old man and I've never heard of Jon Carter. Neither has anybody else I know. Burroughs is known for Tarzan, sure, but Jon Carter is incredibly obscure.
 
And while Iron Man wasn't an A List character, people had at least heard of him before. There was a 90s animated series about him and everything.
 
Blade... yeah, that's a better example. Blade was definitely not well known. But again, Blade wasn't made with some extravagant budget. The budget was rather modest on that first one, wasn't it?

But there are followings for Blade and Iron Man who a huge fans and number in the millions whereas a novel from 1917 more than a majority of people have never heard of let alone read is a big difference.

And right before they state the Barsoom series of books is so old and out of context they equate their feelings to the reported $250 million budget or rumored $350 million budget.

I agree that just because something isn't popular or mainstream that doesn't mean we should ignore it for movies or other forms of media. But making this film, spending so much money, and some of the decisions they've made for this film are baffling.

I think what they were trying to say that making a $250,000,000(!!!) movie based on a character that most people don't know is crazy.

@FinalDasa: I think its a bit of a stretch to say that before the movie Iron Man had fans in the millions. If you said do you know who Iron Man is they would probably say "that one song".

The John Carter series, once you read it, can't really be done either way. The set pieces are huge and varied and unless you do some stripped down version of it there really isn't another way from what I've seen. Again, Lord of the Rings wasn't known by as many people and they did well. I remember being pretty much one of the only couple of people in my entire school who had all of the books...let alone knew they were books before a movie trailer told you.

Is the film risky? Yeah, sure. Is Taylor Kitsch unproven? Mostly, but so was Chris Evans at one point. I remember I didn't care about him at all until I saw Cellular. I think it could pay off, but I think people giving it a generally negative attitude not because of quality but because of "why so much money" will doom it into a self fulfilling prophecy.

@Sammo21: I'd say comparing the Carter novels level of public knowledge to LoTRs is crazy! lol Tolkien's rings books had been a nerd staple for decades and even if you had never heard of them in popular culture you were at least exposed to the ideas of dwarves, elves, and maybe even hobbits.

And the negative attitude at the amount of money spent on the film is reflected in the film's ability to make that money back. Even if the film had an amazing opening weekend of $75 million, it still wouldn't be halfway to making its money back. Which for a new movie property is a death sentence.

Honestly, I don't even know why this film is supposedly 350 million dollars. Most of it seems to be just bluescreen CGI, right? I mean, the same sorta stuff you saw in 300. 300 only cost about 65 million, IIRC.

I have faith in John Carter (Stanton has never failed me), but I'm really sick of people who say that it's a wannabe Avatar. Dude John Carter was Avatar, before Avatar was Avatar. It's the grandfather basically.

@Moviemaniac: James Cameron has cited John Carter as an influence to Avatar as have many things. Hell BATMAN's first appearance was admittedly a rip off a story from The Shadow and people called The Shadow a Batman rip off. People don't care they are wrong.

@Delta_Assault: They mentioned on the podcast it was a lot of reshoots and I bet with all the sets and possible on location shooting they gave that film it gets expensive to do all that twice.

@Sammo21:

Yeah, well they could at least do their homework.

I don't think the issue is with having adapted an unknown book to movie, but turning it into a high profile movie as if the name of the book was a big licence (which is not). I think the main issue was with the movie costing like 300,000,000 dollars, which, unless there is a lot of marketing involved, it will never recoup.

Also, the marketing on this movie has not been strong so far. Most of the images in the trailer makes it look like a cheap mix between Avatar and Attack of the Clones. I know the original work predates and even inspires some of those movies, but you can't expect people to do research on that when nothing in the trailer (the one thing that should grab their attention) gives them no clue of being adapted from a Burroughs' character, who Burroughs is (at least references to his far more known character: Tarzan) and even going so far as distancing themselves from the original by changing the title to something far less descriptive and more generic.

The comparison to Lord of the Rings is a little ridiculous. I am one of the nerds that didn't read the books before I say the first movie, but even I heard the title before and had some idea what it was about. The marketing never hided the source material... Those movies had J.R.R. Tolkien name all over it, even when his novels are almost public domain by now.

@Delta_Assault: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_and_planet

This is the same as all the people (Amercians, mostly) who are all like "Waaaahhhhh!! I don't know what TINTIN is! Why would anyone want to make a movie of it!?! *drool, fart*"

Shouldn't we encourage passionate film-makers who want to adapt material like this? I'm hoping that one day we might actually get a decent huge-budget R.E. Howard adaptation. And if anyone said "But that's from the 30's! Nobody wants to see that!! *picks nose, eats it*" I'd want to punch them in the throat.

@CashBailey said:

This is the same as all the people (Amercians, mostly) who are all like "Waaaahhhhh!! I don't know what TINTIN is! Why would anyone want to make a movie of it!?! *drool, fart*"

Shouldn't we encourage passionate film-makers who want to adapt material like this? I'm hoping that one day we might actually get a decent huge-budget R.E. Howard adaptation. And if anyone said "But that's from the 30's! Nobody wants to see that!! *picks nose, eats it*" I'd want to punch them in the throat.

I agree fucking entirely.I really wish Alex and Rorie could stick to talking about whether a film looks interesting or not, because when either of them start talking like they actually know a damn thing about how films get made (granted, Rorie's more guilty of this than Alex), the whole thing becomes super facepalm worthy. This week's episode is the most egregious example they've provided in quite awhile.

Also, John Carter of Mars is a great concept. Whether or not the movie does well will depend entirely on whether or not the visual splendor of the film can live up to what a modern audience expects in a big budget fantasy. Thank Peter Jackson for ruining it for everyone else.

This wasn't my attempt to shit on Alex and Rorie as I enjoy them both and love the site, but just a general attitude I notice among them. Yes, Tin Tin is a good example as well and that movie looks amazing. Technically there is nothing new under the sun, so every story that can be told already has been. This isn't like seeing Transformers 4 or something similar...John Carter of Mars is a great story that goes beyond the cliche of "white guy has intervention and becomes savior of non white people" and actually presents a rich look. We really don't have many quality movies in the vein of John Carter.