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A review by mburnamfink
John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood: How the sci-fi classic flopped at the box office but continues to inspire fans and filmmakers by Michael D. Sellers
5.0
Michael Sellers has done something impressive with this book. He's made the disastrous marketing campaign and boardroom politics that sabotaged John Carter nearly as thrilling as one of Edgar Rice Burrough's planetary romances.
Sellers has an ax to grind. He's the man responsible for thejohncarterfiles.com, the amazing fan-trailer, and as longtime Barsoom fan, he's using this book to push for sequels. Just because he has an agenda does not necessarily mean that his facts or interpretations are wrong, despite his CIA background*.
Sellers starts by contextualizing the 100 year history of the Barsoom books and attempted film adaptations, and their impacts on modern science fiction. Then the story moves into one about an expensive and complex movie that had its executive support cut out from it when it needed it most. Despite costing $250 million to make, and director Andrew Stanton taking more time than typical for reshoots, the film was completed within its budget and schedule. The Hollywood rumor-mill blew the scale of into an 'out-of-control rookie filmmaker' narrative to feed its unending lust for schadenfreude. Early promotional material was lackluster; dusty desert shots instead of the lush living world of Barsoom. A name change, from 'John Carter of Mars' to 'John Carter', poisoned the opinion of elite early opinion makers and stripped the film of its 100-year pedigree. The marketing team was replaced twice, and never devoted its full attention to the movie, using lackluster trailers and spots. And finally, just 10 days into the theatrical run, Disney killed its own film by labeling it a bomb, writing down losses, and pulling Asian distribution.
All of this is true, you can check the footnotes and the media links (although David Iger would probably tell you a different story). But what sealed the deal for me were the numbers that Sellers pulls. Compared to its Spring 2012 peers, The Hunger Games and The Avengers, John Carter had orders of magnitude lower presence on Facebook, Twitter, and in the industry press. This doesn't even account for the mind-boggling qualitatively superior marketing effort, in terms of engagement and multimodal tie-ins, for the other movies. Sellers describes John Carters marketing effort as "something an intern would do in 5 hours a week at a Burbank Starbucks", and he'd know, having set up a better marketing effort with thejohncarterfiles.com in his spare time using only public resources.
This book won't tell you how to sell a blockbuster. Mostly, it's an amazing picture of a trainwreck. I disagree with Sellers' categorization of John Carter as a misunderstood classic; I think it was a strictly average action-adventure flick that needed more of a heart. But that said, this book is a fascinating look inside Hollywood, and the first and last word on the John Carter story. A movie that had great potential was killed because nobody had the vision or courage to stick their neck out and save it.
*Sellers actually is a retired CIA agent. But that's just a joke, please don't drone me, bro.
Sellers has an ax to grind. He's the man responsible for thejohncarterfiles.com, the amazing fan-trailer, and as longtime Barsoom fan, he's using this book to push for sequels. Just because he has an agenda does not necessarily mean that his facts or interpretations are wrong, despite his CIA background*.
Sellers starts by contextualizing the 100 year history of the Barsoom books and attempted film adaptations, and their impacts on modern science fiction. Then the story moves into one about an expensive and complex movie that had its executive support cut out from it when it needed it most. Despite costing $250 million to make, and director Andrew Stanton taking more time than typical for reshoots, the film was completed within its budget and schedule. The Hollywood rumor-mill blew the scale of into an 'out-of-control rookie filmmaker' narrative to feed its unending lust for schadenfreude. Early promotional material was lackluster; dusty desert shots instead of the lush living world of Barsoom. A name change, from 'John Carter of Mars' to 'John Carter', poisoned the opinion of elite early opinion makers and stripped the film of its 100-year pedigree. The marketing team was replaced twice, and never devoted its full attention to the movie, using lackluster trailers and spots. And finally, just 10 days into the theatrical run, Disney killed its own film by labeling it a bomb, writing down losses, and pulling Asian distribution.
All of this is true, you can check the footnotes and the media links (although David Iger would probably tell you a different story). But what sealed the deal for me were the numbers that Sellers pulls. Compared to its Spring 2012 peers, The Hunger Games and The Avengers, John Carter had orders of magnitude lower presence on Facebook, Twitter, and in the industry press. This doesn't even account for the mind-boggling qualitatively superior marketing effort, in terms of engagement and multimodal tie-ins, for the other movies. Sellers describes John Carters marketing effort as "something an intern would do in 5 hours a week at a Burbank Starbucks", and he'd know, having set up a better marketing effort with thejohncarterfiles.com in his spare time using only public resources.
This book won't tell you how to sell a blockbuster. Mostly, it's an amazing picture of a trainwreck. I disagree with Sellers' categorization of John Carter as a misunderstood classic; I think it was a strictly average action-adventure flick that needed more of a heart. But that said, this book is a fascinating look inside Hollywood, and the first and last word on the John Carter story. A movie that had great potential was killed because nobody had the vision or courage to stick their neck out and save it.
*Sellers actually is a retired CIA agent. But that's just a joke, please don't drone me, bro.