Hi Scott, Long time listener, first time caller... One thing that strikes me about all these "pre-branded" films is that the really successful ones have pre-existing movies to rely on... The ones that are based on source material away from the cinema have performed less well - Including John Carter. A pattern, perhaps? Cheers, TheFifthApe.

Welcome, TFA. Glad your creative wanderings brought you to this humble corner of the online world. And your point has merit, I think. Movies based on movies are often themselves based on preexisting material, so you've got a kind of meta marketing thing going on with the current story drafting off multiple previous iterations. Whereas a film like John Carter only has the book. With so much 'noise' out there in the marketing universe, consumers bombarded with ads EVERYWHERE, it's harder and harder to get people to commit to going to the local theater and see a movie. A big part of that is getting across WHAT the movie is. If it's drafting on something like The Wizard of Oz, like the current Oz: The Great and Powerful is, that gives it a leg up. Of course, what this means is Hollywood will only continue to do remakes, reboots, sequels, prequels... until consumers have had enough... if that day will even come... Again welcome!