Alongside major science fiction successes such as Avatar and Star Wars, there are always major flops as well. Science fiction is simply incredibly expensive. In 2012, Disney wanted to replicate the success of Avatar. They invested a lot of money, but John Carter became one of the biggest flops in cinematic history.
What kind of movie is John Carter – Between Two Worlds? John Carter is based on the book A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, who, by the way, also created Tarzan. The titular hero John Carter is actually a Civil War veteran fleeing from captivity.
Suddenly, however, he finds himself on Mars, where large, unknown creatures reign. The source material is one of the earliest sci-fi stories, with elements that can also be seen in Avatar, Star Wars, or even Star Trek. In 2012, Disney wanted to adapt this story after almost 100 years. They allocated a large budget, but ultimately it resulted in one of the biggest flops in film history.
Another major flop was Mortal Engines:
It was supposed to be a new sci-fi hit for Disney
How expensive was John Carter? In 2009, Avatar celebrated a huge success as a new science fiction IP. In 2012, Disney wanted to establish a new brand as a franchise. John Carter was released. As a science fiction film, it was, of course, also expensive. According to Box Office Mojo, the film cost 250 million dollars (approximately nearly 230 million euros). Marketing costs are, of course, not included in that.
For a film like this, those costs would really have been high. BBC estimates that an additional 100 million dollars (almost 92 million euros) could be added. The film ultimately grossed nearly 280 million dollars (almost 257 million euros), with a disastrous 73 million dollars (almost 67 million euros) in the USA.
Thus, the film incurred a loss of nearly 100 million dollars, assuming 100 million dollars as marketing costs. For the film to be considered profitable, it would have needed to gross nearly 600 million dollars. Screen Rant even calculated a loss of 200 million dollars, including costs for rights and distribution.
Critics also didn’t respond well to the film. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a critic score of 52%.
John Carter had the potential to become a major franchise. The starting situation wasn’t bad. With Andrew Stanton, they had an inexperienced director for live-action productions, but he had previously told an interesting sci-fi story with Wall-E. Since the source material is considered the progenitor of many other stories, there was great potential here as well. You can actually see the similarities between John Carter, Avatar, and Star Wars at our colleagues from Filmstarts: “John Carter” Vs. “Star Wars” Vs. “Avatar”: Who is actually stealing from whom?
Ultimately, however, it was of no use. The big franchise turned into a big failure. 2012 would have been a bad year for Disney if the first Avengers film hadn’t become an enormous success a month later. Have you seen John Carter and what did you think of the film? Let us know in the comments. There are also big flops in other genres: John Wick’s biggest flop is a film that cost over 170 million euros
