Among the list of Tinseltown disasters, one crash stands tallest than any other: John Carter (2012). The film seemed all but destined for box office success with the epic sci-fi story based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ pulp novels. Instead, John Carter “detonated” in space as perhaps the biggest box office bomb to date. The failure not only rattled Disney’s box office throne, but led to the resignation of a billionaire—and still resonates as a cautionary tale.
When Disney green-lit director Andrew Stanton’s vision of John Carter of Mars, there were high expectations. Disney launched an ambitious project with a gigantic production budget—approximately $263 million—plus another reported $100 million in marketing, leading up to total costs of around $350 million.
The plot? Long story short, a Civil War vet wakes up on another planet, who finds himself in an alien civil war. When it comes to mainstream storytelling, John Carter drew a lot of criticism. The critics and audiences could not make the connections. The buzz was mostly summed up eloquently: “looks like a lame rip-off of Star Wars and Dune.” Ultimately, the final ticket sales showed the film grossed a mere $284 million worldwide—leaving Disney with a financial loss between $149-200.
The blame ultimately lay on Disney’s studio chief, Rich Ross. After the mess, he was let go—even termed as the first time that a single flop was so poorly received it caused a resignation from a CEO in the history of the film industry.
As the failed hero, Taylor Kitsch watched as his career ground to a halt—his next big leading part in the film Battleship wasn’t much better, and he saw his leading parts dry up. Even his leading lady, Lynn Collins, withdrew to recalibrate, as advised by her agency, to “disappear for a while” which some say was slightly inconsistent with the male lead option of Kitsch.
Insiders in the film industry say it was the faulty marketing—trailers did not intrigue, but only confused audiences. As if that was not enough, Disney was not going to promote what they saw as a potential rival to their signature story, Star Wars. When we also consider the bloated budget, and the stakes of success were incredibly steep—they were almost set-up for failure.
Today, John Carter will go down as one of Hollywood’s biggest box office bombs—as a crude example of the ambition of a project out-pacing the execution of it. The film is still noted in “biggest flop” lists and discussed in business case studies: here was a user on Reddit that described it as the definitive answer to “Hollywood’s biggest box office bomb.”
Was it a simple screw-up, or just a sign that a studio is too big to be risky or original? Walt Disney’s mega-flop was a big public accountability project, and left an impression that none of the participants would forget.
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