A combination of a massive budget, a rare muddled marketing campaign by Disney, and some initially poor reviews led to filmmaker Andrew Stanton’s live-action “John Carter” movie being branded one of the biggest commercial film failures ever.
Snagging $284 million globally from a rumored $300 million production budget, any chance of a potential franchise based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ famed books died then and there.
A decade on though and time has been kind to “John Carter” which has become something of a cult fave as the Taylor Kitsch-led film’s old school adventure tone has been more embraced.
In a recent interview with The Wrap, Stanton has for the first time openly discussed details about the opening sequence for “Gods of Mars,” an adaptation of the second book in Burroughs’ Barsoom series.
He says every film in the planned trilogy had a different character saying the prologue, this one being Dejah (Lynn Collins) who is telling it to Carthoris, her child with Carter (Kitsch). Ciaran Hinds’ character, Tardos Mors, ushers her to bed and once she leaves he reveals himself to really be the first film villain Matai Shang (Mark Strong) who steals the baby.
Cut to Carter lying in his funeral suit in the middle of the Martian desert waking up and then wandering only to be found and brought to Kantos Kan (James Purefoy) who has been searching for him for years and reveals Dejah’s gone missing:
She’s convinced that the Therns took their child and if Carter ever comes back, she went down the River Iss to try and find him. And then, like ‘Beneath the Planet of the Apes,’ it all takes place, everybody going into the earth to find out who’s really been controlling the whole planet. There’s a whole race down there that has been with high tech.
Basically, it’s been a third world without anybody knowing it on the top of the surface and the first world’s been inside the whole time operating the air, the water, the everything to keep the world functioning.
The outlet has done a lengthy feature piece going all in on the film’s early development, production, muddled marketing, reception and its subsequent re-appreciation. You can read that by clicking here.