![]() ![]() In John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood author Michael D. James Bond, Mike Hammer, and Tarzan are all dream-selves, and the aim of each is to establish personal primacy in a world which in reality diminishes the individual.” – Gore Vidal, “Tarzan Revisited,” Esquire, December 1967 Since there are few legitimate releases for the average man, he must take to daydreaming. In its naive way, the Tarzan legend returns us to that Eden where, free of clothes and the inhibitions of an oppressive society, a man can achieve his continuing need, which is, as William Faulkner put it in his high Confederate style, to prevail as well as endure…the individual’s desire to dominate his environment is not a desirable trait in a society which every day grows more and more confining. Man left Eden when we got up off all fours, endowing most of his descendants with nostalgia as well as chronic backache. From Plato’s Republic to Opar to Bond-land, at every level, the human imagination has tried to imagine something better for itself than the existing society. “All of us need the idea of a world alternative to this one. If you saw any of their misleading trailers and TV spots and those godawful teaser posters you will likely wonder if anyone in the marketing department at Disney’s film division was even working at all. With the removal of those two simple words “of Mars” the studio would now have to work even harder to get asses in seats come March 2012 when John Carter had its theatrical debut. Their first major mistake was changing the title from John Carter of Mars to just John Carter reportedly since Disney’s 2011 CGI-animated feature Mars Needs Moms was a box office megaton bomb. BARSOOM AND FLASH GORDON HOW TOJohn Carter‘s failure to even make back its budget and marketing costs turned out to be a major strike against the Walt Disney Company the studio was pilloried for befouling what has been long considered one of the most important (if not THE most important) genre properties in existence by hiring a director inexperienced with live action – Stanton had previously directed several major hits for the company’s computer animation division Pixar – and allowing the costs to mount to the point where the movie’s box office prospects were saddled with unrealistic expectations, and then worsening its already ineffectual reputation even more with a confusing ad campaign that had no idea how to sell the film to the general moviegoing public. BARSOOM AND FLASH GORDON MOVIEThough it was very flawed I found the movie to be one of the most entertaining of last year – you can read my review here – yet it seems I was in the minority on that front. ![]() BARSOOM AND FLASH GORDON SERIESUnfortunately a series of idiotic marketing decisions in the run-up to the film’s debut and mounds of negative press surrounding the troubled production and its massive $250 million budget effectively sabotaged any chance John Carter had of connecting with audiences and grossing enough at the box office to ensure future sequels and additional ancillary revenue. ![]() Released several months before the summer movie deluge, Andrew Stanton’s highly anticipated adaptation of the classic 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs novel A Princess of Mars had the potential to kick start a new blockbuster sci-fi adventure franchise. ![]()
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