Kind of off topic, but I read the article in the New Yorker about Andrew Stanton and found it very informative. Stanton was a major contributor to the early Pixar films and talks about his process of reducing what each story is about to a short simple sentence. For example, Walle was: "Love Conquers All Programming". I think Finding Nemo was: "Fear prevents a good father from being one." He also mentioned the one line for John Carter but I forget how it went, although I remember it wasn't as good as the others... which may be a warning sign for the movie!

That New Yorker article is an outstanding one. And Anthony, you're so right about those two one-liners re his Pixar movies, both of them wonderful. I recently interviewed David Seidler, who wrote "The King's Speech," and he said much the same thing in terms of how to write a bio-pic: find the essence of the story, reduce it to one line, and make sure everything hews to that. If it doesn't, get rid of it. As an aside, I have subscribed to the New Yorker for decades, but these last few years, so tough for me to make the time to read it, they accumulate and I end up plowing through them in November and December. Now I have that licked: I got an iPad for Christmas, download each issue, and read it on my commute to and from my office.

It's amazing to me that in the 2nd trailer we need Andrew Stanton to come out and tell us how great the material this movie is based upon is, and how much he loves it. I find the posters stale and boring, I find the trailers derivative and I am certainly not surprised that Disney is now looking for a new marketing head. The poster design is atrocious. Designed by a committee of mental defectives. When I saw the first poster I was so disappointed I went and made my own poster based on a Frazetta painting: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150988750000504&set=a.10150329114530504.584199.888065503&type=3&theater Personal taste aside, Disney doesn't even mention Burroughs in any of the marketing, and he was the creator of one of their biggest hits - TARZAN! The posters and trailers don't give me that same epic feeling that I got when I saw the STAR WARS trailers. Certainly STAR WARS and other epic science-fantasy movies owe a lot to Burroughs and his writing. This was the epic that started it all, and there's no question this sales point has been swept aside. What sort of idiocy is that? To say that I, and many other fans who have eagerly awaited this film (dating back to when Robert Rodriguez and Kerry Conran were attached to it), are disappointed is a tremendous understatement. This movie should not have cost $250M. It certainly doesn't look it. This movie should be the granddaddy of all space epics. This movie, should be a freaking slam dunk... But instead we have trailers "explaining" things to us.

Is it just me or does Andrew Stanton look less than enthusiastic, almost apologetic as he's introducing the trailer? Or maybe he's just tired. Allow me to make some comments about the marketing campaign. The teaser trailer (and the Japanese trailer) showed us much more variety and gave us a sense of the scope of the story: from the origins to the adventure ahead. The second trailer makes it look like another one of those 'battles in the sand dunes' movies with a burnt-by-the-sun/brown/beige color scheme. To me it has a video game look and that's a huge turn off. The TV spots I've seen so far seems to be going for the action aspect as well. Here's my view: Please don't show us mostly battle scenes, we get those in every action hero movie! Show us adventure! We crave adventure! At least I do. There's no amount of CGI'd alien armies that will beat a good old-fashioned adventure story. Show us the things that are different from all the other run-of-the-mill action flicks. I'll say it again: we get CGI battles in EVERY action movie! It's nothing special. People will get tired of that quicker than you realize, if they're not already, I know I am. Don't think you can sell the same old stuff to today's audience. It's too smart for that. The reason you can take a 100-year old series like John Carter and film it today has nothing to do with any battle scenes or evil looking aliens/monsters/whatever they are. It has to do with the adventures that this guy goes on. Take us on an adventure as well. Where's the peril? Where's the suspense? No one watches this trailer and thinks "Will he make it out alive?" Excuse my rant, I'm off topic as far as screenwriting goes, but if these giant studios want to survive as storytelling entities, they better rethink how they present their movies to the world as well. They can't make a $250M film and expect it to make a profit unless it takes us on an adventure that we haven't experienced before. They better sell the crap out of this movie if it's gonna stand a chance. "the early trailers and the studio’s decision to abbreviate the film’s title from “John Carter of Mars” to “John Carter” left some sensing that Disney doesn’t quite know how best to sell what Stanton delivered." It could be a great film. It showed promise with the teaser trailer. I honestly hope they don't just focus on the action sequences for the rest of the campaign because it looks like the movie could have more to it than that. Matt Bird over at Cockeyed Caravan said recently that "There's never been a hit set-on-Mars movie" and thought that was one of the reasons they removed "Mars" from the title. He's probably right. Let's hope that this will not be another victim of the Mars curse.

John Carter looks weird and terrible.

Total Recall was set on Mars, and that made $260M worldwide, in 1990 dollars.

I forgot about that one!

Bill, first off I love your poster. And the tagline: "There's a reason it's called the angry red planet." Second I had that creepy feeling, too: Why the need to explain things in pre-trailer commentary from Stanton? Clearly he's doing that to speak to the core demo, the fans of the original story. But if movies are, "Show it, don't say it," why aren't they just... you know... showing it? It's like someone in the food chain is super nervous about the content. Such talent involved, too: Stanton, Chabon. Setting aside the story itself, there's a part of me that wants the movie to succeed just so that talent gets proven right. We shall see...

You're hitting on concerns I have all the time for the CGI / superhero films: The battles mean NOTHING to me unless I care about the characters. There is NOTHING new left to show visually, so please do something in the marketing that gets me invested in the characters -- especially the Protagonist -- and their journey. With a videogame, I suppose this isn't as big of a concern because the player has the challenge of solving the puzzles and beating the game. But in a movie where it's a more passive relationship, we have to establish a connection between characters and script reader / moviegoer. Absolutely critical or else everything that happens is just noise.

Thanks, Scott! You really can't go wrong with Frazetta. I added very little to the mix, just a little frosting. Re: $250M - as you point out in your post, that's a huge number to overcome. Even if they have pre-sold the rights to various territories to offset the budget, it's really scary. I'm surprised it cost that much as I don't see it onscreen. And in looking at their poster campaign, it's as if Disney is so paralyzed by the cost, that they have forgotten how to market a big adventure movie. That creepy feeling isn't going to go away anytime soon.

I have to give Stanton the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps Disney feels pressured to market in the style of IMMORTALS and CLASH OF THE TITANS. The trailer certainly makes it seem like a a poor man's Avatar. But McNulty is in the film!

I really HOPE this movie rocks! Love Stanton's other films and would love to see a new fantasy/sci-fi/adventure done right! Please be amazing!

I may be in the minority here, but I prefer the top/first trailer to the second one. The second trailer is packed with special effects shots and one-liners. Where as the first looks and sounds more mystical and dream-like, and thus feels more epic to me. But that's just my opinion.

Here's a link to Kerry Conran's presentation reel for his JOHN CARTER OF MARS. http://io9.com/5876599/watch-kerry-conrans-video-pitch-for-the-john-carter-of-mars-movie-that-never-was The reel is linked at LG Films. There's also links to the development hell that JC has gone through at various studios. Very enlightening.

Thanks for this, Bill. Look forward to reviewing.

[...] Yeah, $250 million, and seemingly on its way to recouping a tiny fraction of that because the marketers can’t figure out what the fuck they’re doing. This could be because the guy who was supposed to have his hand on the tiller quit last month. [...]