Everyone Remembers ‘John Carter’ as a Flop, and That’s a Shame

On paper, it sounded like a surefire hit. Andrew Stanton, the two-time Oscar-winning director of Finding Nemo and WALL-E, was set to make his live-action debut just a year after fellow Pixar visionary Brad Bird had done so to astounding success. Stanton was working with one of the most influential science-fiction texts of all time, one that Avatar and Star Wars arguably wouldn’t exist without. All the right ingredients were in place, and yet 2012’s John Carter opened to greatly mixed reviews and disastrous box office returns, losing almost $200 million for Disney.

Yet, despite being remembered as one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time, with maybe the single worst marketing campaign in modern history, is John Carter actually deserving of its reputation? We’d argue no — while far from perfect, it actually holds up surprisingly well as a pulpy sci-fi joyride, brimming with charm, action and humor.

‘John Carter’ Was Always Going to Be a Hard Sell

In fairness, John Carter was always going to be a bit of a hard sell for mass audiences. The film, based off of the first installment in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ cult Barsoom franchise, A Princess of Mars, had been trying to get the Hollywood treatment for decades. In the 1980s, Disney bought the rights to the novel, looking for a potential competitor to Star Wars, but the project fell apart because the technology required wasn’t where it needed to be.

The early 2000s saw Paramount win the book rights in a bid, and both Robert Rodriguez and Jon Favreau were set to direct at different points. However, the rights reverted to Disney in 2006, as Paramount shifted its priorities to J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot, and Andrew Stanton, a lifelong fan of the Barsoom books, landed the director’s chair. While Stanton reportedly struggled initially with making the jump to live-action, thus requiring extensive reshoots, by all accounts, the actual production wasn’t as disastrous as a flop of this scale would suggest.

The marketing, however, was a different story. Admittedly, it was going to be hard to make John Carter stand out in the sci-fi crowd. Yet the trailers still seemingly made every baffling decision possible, refusing to play up Stanton’s pedigree with Pixar or A Princess of Mars‘s influence on the genre.

Since the Barsoom novels were such a key influence on the biggest modern sci-fi franchises, everything about John Carter ironically looked derivative, even as slavishly faithful as it was. The result was a film that seemingly appealed to nobody, and following a year of bad buzz, it collapsed at the box office in March 2012, eventually leading to the resignation of Rich Ross, the then-head of Walt Disney Studios, and the planned sequels were canceled.

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‘John Carter’ Deserved Better

All of this is a shame because John Carter is actually far better than its now-infamous reputation would suggest, even if it still has its flaws. It starts slow, only significantly picking up when the title character arrives on Mars, and the flashback structure incorporated throughout too often halts the pace while giving us necessary character information that would’ve better helped early scenes resonate. Nonetheless, one can feel Stanton’s passion for the Barsoom novels at every turn, and his slavish faithfulness helps the film feel like a labor of love.

Helping matters is the fact that John Carter never takes itself too seriously. Stanton wanted to deliver a pulpy, action-packed thrill ride, reminiscent in spirit of Star Wars or Indiana Jones, and it delivers exactly that. While the characters aren’t the most complex in the world, they serve the story effectively enough. The production design and visual effects are also gorgeous, and the action-sequences are particularly impressive in their staging, especially considering this was Stanton’s live-action debut.

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Moreover, over a decade later, John Carter feels like a throwback to a bygone era for Disney. While the Marvel Cinematic Universe (at least up through Avengers: Endgame) has certainly been enjoyable, there’s no denying that most of its films have been safe bets, aimed at the widest demographic possible while only occasionally taking risks. John Carter feels most reminiscent of the first Pirates of the Caribbean, another old-fashioned adventure (also considered a huge risk at the time) intent on delivering gusto thrills to audiences while swinging for the fences with goofy, go-for-broke abandon and epic scale.

Indeed, in a 10-year retrospective on John Carter, The Hollywood Reporter reflected: “John Carter’s failure was the moment Disney became the servant of sure bets, and Hollywood realized star power was truly gone. That was when we entered the age of name recognition, where familiar characters and concepts — Jedi, superheroes — became worth more than any actor’s name.” While imperfect, it’s the kind of endearing, pure-hearted adventure that’s sadly missing from Hollywood nowadays, certainly deserving of being remembered as more than one of Disney’s biggest flops. We absolutely would’ve liked to see where the planned sequels would’ve gone.