Let's analyze John Carter

knightly said:
Who said Pern? I didn't know the "Princess of Mars" stuff, but I know Pern, and Killashandra (which would be a cool film too). Next Neal Stephenson and Terry Brooks and I'll be in heaven!
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I alternate between thinking Stephenson in film-form would be good or not. Half the fun is the style in which he writes, let alone the infodumps. "Did you like that pirate adventure? Here, have 200 pages of banking and finance history!" You could probably do Snowcrash okay with some clever writing, but most of his stuff I don't think would translate too well.
 
knightly said:
Who said Pern? I didn't know the "Princess of Mars" stuff, but I know Pern, and Killashandra (which would be a cool film too). Next Neal Stephenson and Terry Brooks and I'll be in heaven!
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As a rabid Pern fan it's disturbing that it was green-lit less than two months after she passed away. What has me worried about the "Pern" films are the treatments that Anne McCaffrey deep sixed; they had the character names, dragons and the location but little else.


Which Brooks and which Stephenson?


I would like to see some John Varley - the Gaea Trilogy would be cool, as would Red Thunder and any number of his short stories (the Barbie Murders or Lost in the Memory Bank would be a lot of fun). Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein would make a fantastic film.
 
TMiaHM is one of the few long-form Heinlein books I've yet to read. But speaking of Heinlein, I read a little while ago that someone is turning The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag into a feature. That is something I'm really looking forward to (as long as they don't make it too scary, lol).
 
As good as he is if you mention his name to the average movie-goer they'll give you a blank stare. Could you imagine the ad campaign? (In your best Don LaFontaine VO trailer voice...) From the director of "A Bugs Life" and "Finding Nemo"
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:rofl:

Kinda like that trailer for The Shining that was edited to make it look like a comedy, or along those lines. Cutting to silly shots of the slug dog and JC flying through the air.

I bet someone out there could make a damn funny trailer like that for John Carter.

Oh wait... the Disney marketing team already did! :lol:

It sounds like the movie (still haven't seen it) stands on its own and is entertaining folks, but their campaign to sell it was way way off the mark.

Then there's the case of The Hunger Games which, from what I've been reading, is going to clean house.
 
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Not intending to hijack the thread, but felt this article about marketing The Hunger Games bore posting in regards to marketing a "big" Hollywood film.

Could the fate of John Carter been altered with a different/better/similar campaign?

How ‘Hunger Games’ Built Up Must-See Fever

Feeding Hunger for ‘The Hunger Games’: Hollywood reporter Brooks Barnes reports on Lionsgate’s new interactive marketing campaign for “The Hunger Games.”

By BROOKS BARNES
Published: March 18, 2012

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Selling a movie used to be a snap. You printed a poster, ran trailers in theaters and carpet-bombed NBC’s Thursday night lineup with ads.

The movie's Facebook page. The marketers made careful use of cheap social media to get young people to recommend the movie to each other.
Today, that kind of campaign would get a movie marketer fired. The dark art of movie promotion increasingly lives on the Web, where studios are playing a wilier game, using social media and a blizzard of other inexpensive yet effective online techniques to pull off what may be the marketer’s ultimate trick: persuading fans to persuade each other.

The art lies in allowing fans to feel as if they are discovering a film, but in truth Hollywood’s new promotional paradigm involves a digital hard sell in which little is left to chance — as becomes apparent in a rare step-by-step tour through the timetable and techniques used by Lionsgate to assure that “The Hunger Games” becomes a box office phenomenon when it opens on Friday.

While some studios have halted once-standard marketing steps like newspaper ads, Lionsgate used all the usual old-media tricks — giving away 80,000 posters, securing almost 50 magazine cover stories, advertising on 3,000 billboards and bus shelters.

But the campaign’s centerpiece has been a phased, yearlong digital effort built around the content platforms cherished by young audiences: near-constant use of Facebook and Twitter, a YouTube channel, a Tumblr blog, iPhone games and live Yahoo streaming from the premiere.

By carefully lighting online kindling (releasing a fiery logo to movie blogs) and controlling the Internet burn over the course of months (a Facebook contest here, a Twitter scavenger hunt there), Lionsgate’s chief marketing officer, Tim Palen, appears to have created a box office inferno.

Analysts project that the “The Hunger Games,” which cost about $80 million to make and is planned as a four-movie franchise, could have opening-weekend sales of about $90 million — far more than the first “Twilight” and on par with “Iron Man,” which went on to take in over $585 million worldwide in 2008.

Along the way the studio had to navigate some unusually large pitfalls, chief among them the film’s tricky subject matter of children killing children for a futuristic society’s televised amusement. The trilogy of novels, written by Suzanne Collins, is critical of violence as entertainment, not an easy line for a movie marketer to walk, even though the movie itself is quite tame in its depiction of killing.

“The beam for this movie is really narrow, and it’s a sheer drop to your death on either side,” said Mr. Palen, during an unusually candid two-hour presentation of his “Hunger Games” strategy at the studio’s offices here last month.

A built-in fan base for “The Hunger Games” certainly helps its prospects. More than 24 million copies of “The Hunger Games” trilogy are in print in the United States alone. About 9.6 million copies were in circulation domestically when the movie’s marketing campaign intensified last summer, so Lionsgate’s efforts appear to have sold the book as well as the movie.

Lionsgate has generated this high level of interest with a marketing staff of 21 people working with a relatively tiny budget of about $45 million. Bigger studios routinely spend $100 million marketing major releases, and have worldwide marketing and publicity staffs of over 100 people. The studio has been able to spend so little largely because Mr. Palen has relied on inexpensive digital initiatives to whip up excitement.

The irony is that all of this may still not be enough to save Mr. Palen’s job. In a corporate twist on “The Hunger Games,” Mr. Palen is being forced to fight for his professional life following Lionsgate’s acquisition in January of Summit Entertainment, which controls the “Twilight” franchise. That means Lionsgate now has two marketing chiefs, and there is only room for one.

Mr. Palen declined to comment on his job status, but it is clear that Ms. Collins is perplexed at the possibility of a future without him. “He’s a generous collaborator,” she said in an e-mail. “His work is so exceptionally good, I rarely had any notes. If he keeps his e-mails, he must have about 50 from me that say, ‘That looks amazing!’ ”

Early promotion for “The Hunger Games” started in spring 2009, when Mr. Palen flew to New York to meet with publicity executives from Scholastic to learn about the book franchise. Rubber didn’t hit the road, however, until last March, when the Lionsgate team, including Julie Fontaine, executive vice president of publicity, started methodically pumping out casting news via Facebook.

They assigned one team member to cultivate “Hunger Games” fan blogs. Danielle DePalma, senior vice president for digital marketing, drafted a chronology for the entire online effort, using spreadsheets (coded in 12 colors) that detailed what would be introduced on a day-by-day, and even minute-by-minute, basis over months. (“Nov. 17: Facebook posts — photos, Yahoo brand page goes live.”)

One important online component involved a sweepstakes to bring five fans to the movie’s North Carolina set. Notably, Lionsgate invited no reporters: The studio did not want consumers thinking this was another instance of Hollywood trying to force-feed them a movie through professional filters. “People used to be O.K. with studios telling them what to like,” Ms. DePalma said. “Not anymore. Now it’s, ‘You don’t tell us, we tell you.’ ”

Last summer, the Lionsgate team, including Nina Jacobson, a producer, and Joe Drake, then the studio’s top movie executive, started debating how to handle the movie’s subject. The usual move would have been to exploit imagery from the games in TV commercials. How else would men in particular get excited about the movie? But Mr. Palen was worried.

“This book is on junior high reading lists, but kids killing kids, even though it’s handled delicately in the film, is a potential perception problem in marketing,” he said.

One morning, he floated a radical idea: what about never showing the games at all in the campaign? Some team members were incredulous; after all, combat scenes make up more than half the movie. “There was a lot of, ‘You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t see how we can manage that,’ ” Mr. Palen recalled.

Eventually, he prevailed. “Everyone liked the implication that if you want to see the games you have to buy a ticket,” he said. Boundaries were also established involving how to position plot developments; in the movie, 24 children fight to the death until one wins, but “we made a rule that we would never say ‘23 kids get killed,’ ” Mr. Palen said. “We say ‘only one wins.’ ” The team also barred the phrase “Let the games begin.”

“This is not about glorifying competition; these kids are victims,” Mr. Palen said. A few months later, when a major entertainment magazine planned to use “Let the Games Begin” as the headline on a “Hunger Games” cover, Ms. Fontaine, traveling in London, frantically worked her cellphone until editors agreed to change it.

In August came a one-minute sneak peek, introduced online at MTV.com. People liked it but complained — loudly — that it wasn’t enough. “We weren’t prepared for that level of we-demand-more pushback,” Mr. Palen said.

The footage did include a Twitter prompt through which fans could discover a Web site for the movie, TheCapitol.pn. (The Capitol is where the Hunger Games take place.) The site allowed visitors to make digital ID cards as if they lived in Panem, the movie’s futuristic society; more than 800,000 people have created them.

October included another Twitter stunt, this time meant to allow those ID makers to campaign online to be elected mayor of various districts of Panem. November marked the iTunes release of the main trailer, which received eight million views in its first 24 hours.

On Dec. 15, 100 days before the movie’s release, the studio created a new poster and cut it into 100 puzzle pieces. It then gave digital versions of those pieces to 100 Web sites and asked them to post their puzzle piece on Twitter in lockstep.

Fans had to search Twitter to put together the poster, either by printing out the pieces and cutting them out or using a program like Photoshop. “The Hunger Games” trended worldwide on Twitter within minutes.

“It was a silly little stunt, but it worked — bam,” Mr. Palen said.

More movie hubs went live on sites like PopSugar, Moviefone and The Huffington Post in January, which also was the start of a lavish Tumblr blog called Capitol Couture dedicated to the movie’s unique fashions. Fifty more Web sites coordinated a ticket giveaway. Capitol TV — movie footage, user-generated “Hunger Games” videos — arrived on YouTube in February and has since generated almost 17.7 million video views.

This week, remembering it is operating in the attention deficit era, Lionsgate will introduce a new Facebook game and, separately, a virtual tour of the Capitol in a Web partnership with Microsoft.

“You’ve got to constantly give people something new to get excited about, but we also had another goal in mind,” Ms. DePalma said. “How do we best sustain online interest until the DVD comes out?”
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ROC said:
@Alcove I've never really thought of Pixar films as being strictly children films but I do see your point.
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It's all about perception - if it's animated it must be for kids. What most folks forget is that animation was, for the most part, a very adult movie experience in the 20's and 30's, and even into the 40's. I forget the name, but I saw a great documentary on Betty Boop. In the early cartoons, before the censors and "The Code", her top would fall down and she would consort with "unsavory" people. She went through a radical image change once the Code came into effect. Popeye, MGM cartoons like Tom & Jerry and the good ol' Warner cartoons like Bugs Bunny, et al, were meant for adults. They were sitting in vaults doing nothing and started showing up on TV in the late '50's as afternoon kids fare. Their popularity led to lots of cheap made-for-TV cartoons and early Japanimation (like "Speed Racer"), and, combined with Disneys specific aim at the pre-teen market, in the 60's and 70's animation became inextricably linked with kids.

Flicker Pictures said:
Then there's the case of The Hunger Games which, from what I've been reading, is going to clean house.
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But the audience is right there and hungrily waiting - the book came out less than four years ago!
 
The difference between The Hunger Games and John Carter is that the target demographic for the movie is the same as the fans of the book, which is not true of JC.

Most John Carter fans seem to be adults who either discovered the books in years before Harry Potter and Twilight were the only things being read, or grown ups who have an interest in science fiction origins. But the movie is being marketed at the 10-16 yo male market, few of whom have an interest in the John Carter mythology.

The Hunger Games is being marketed at teens and it's teens who are fans of the books. Win win, easy money.
 
So when are they going to make the Wytch series into movies??

:)

Wait, no.

I think Hollywood is going to re-make the Harry Potter series. Might as well - they are re-making everything it seems :P
 
ROC said:
I think Hollywood is going to re-make the Harry Potter series. Might as well - they are re-making everything it seems :P
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I have a dream that one day I'll remake the Harry Potter series as an HBO style TV show with two or three chapters per hour long episode (7 seasons, obvs). I think that would satisfy my insatiable thirst for production detail...
 
Scoopicman said:
I also enjoyed JOHN CARTER for the popcorn movie it is, as did my kids. As to why it is "failing" at the box office:

$500,000 gets you this!

princess-of-mars01.jpg


Another $249,500,000 gets you this!

jcarter-dafoe-2.jpg
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:lol:

So SyFy already made this movie??
 
Come to think of it, those aliens in JC must have a really easy time propping their Miso soups on their jaw-fang-bone thingies and sipping them ;)
 
I tried watching that 2009 Princess of Mars... TRIED. Really bad. Couldn't get past the first twenty minutes. Comparing Princess with John Carter is like comparing a Lamborghini and a tricycle -- they both have wheels!

I cannot think of anything in the Sabato/Lords 'epic' that was positive. Trite trash across the screen. Horrible acting, CGI that a 12 year old could do. As a fan of the series... I was ashamed to admit being a fan of the books by Burroughs.

The Disney version -- awesome. I do think that a few people have hit the nail on the head. Those that liked the books went and saw the movie with thumbs up. IT IS an 'age' thing. I read the Hunger games trilogy. Yes, I know Collins aimed them at teen girls - but I READ EVERYTHING. I absorb culture and trends -- use as many faucets of culture as I can in my writing and making movies.

I will not go to see The Hunger Games until it drops out of the big screen environment. Why? I want to enjoy the movie and not be distracted by screaming teens! LOL. Actually, I am starting a new movie production and it will take almost 100% of my time.
 
don patterson said:
I cannot think of anything in the Sabato/Lords 'epic' that was positive. Trite trash across the screen. Horrible acting, CGI that a 12 year old could do. As a fan of the series... I was ashamed to admit being a fan of the books by Burroughs.
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So, maybe it's not absolutely always story, story, story?
Maybe sometimes execution does overpower story?
Waaa... !

Curse you, Asylum! Curse you!!!!!

asylum_films_v2.jpg
 
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