Walt Disney Pictures
The science-fiction film "John Carter," starring Taylor Kitsch, cost
an estimated $350 million to make and market.
By BROOKS BARNES
LOS ANGELES — In 1987, shortly before the release of "Ishtar,"
Columbia Pictures realized the film was going to flop in catastrophic
fashion. But rather than cut advertising spending to minimize the
financial damage — as the studio's top marketer advised — Columbia did
the opposite, pouring even more money into ads.
Enlarge This Image
Matt Sayles/Associated Press
Andrew Stanton, the director of "John Carter."
The reason? The studio was desperate to stay on good terms with the
two stars of "Ishtar," Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman. "Ego trumps
logic in Hollywood," said Peter Sealey, who was Columbia's marketing
chief at the time.
Studios have repeatedly pledged in the 25 years since to modernize
their clubby business practices, but the more Hollywood promises
change, the deeper it seems to fall into its ruts — as evidenced by
"John Carter," a big-budget science fiction epic from Walt Disney
Studios that opened Friday and flopped over the weekend. Disney spent
lavishly (some say foolishly) on the movie in large part to appease
one of its most important creative talents: Andrew Stanton, the
Pixar-based director of "Finding Nemo" and "Wall-E."
"John Carter," which cost an estimated $350 million to make and
market, and was directed by Mr. Stanton, took in about $30.6 million
at the North American box office, according to Rentrak, which compiles
box-office data. That result is so poor that analysts estimate that
Disney will be forced to take a quarterly write-down of $100 million
to $165 million. The amount will depend on ticket sales overseas,
where "John Carter" took in about $71 million over the weekend, a
better total than Disney had feared.
Profitability for "John Carter" was always a steep climb. Because of
its enormous cost and the way ticket sales are split with theaters,
analysts say the film needs to take in more than $600 million globally
to break even. The only silver lining for Disney may be a dubious one:
last March the studio's "Mars Needs Moms" flopped so badly that it
also required a write-down, making year-on-year performance
comparisons less brutal.
In recent weeks, as a weak marketing campaign failed to generate
audience excitement for "John Carter," Robert A. Iger, Disney's chief
executive, made it clear in conversations with senior managers that he
would not tolerate finger-pointing; this may be a colossal miss, he
told them, according to people who were present, but it's the
company's miss and no individuals would be blamed — including Mr.
Stanton. Learn from it, was Mr. Iger's message.
On Sunday, Rich Ross, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, said in a
statement, "Moviemaking does not come without risk. It's still an
art, not a science, and there is no proven formula for success. Andrew
Stanton is an incredibly talented and successful filmmaker who with
his team put their hard work and vision into the making of 'John
Carter.' Unfortunately, it failed to connect with audiences as much as
we had all hoped."
Mr. Stanton declined to comment for this article.
It is true that no one mistake created "John Carter." Still,
interviews with current and former Disney executives paint a
relatively stark portrait of responsibility, starting with Mr. Stanton
and extending to studio managers — many of them inexperienced in their
jobs — who gave him creative carte blanche. Although Mr. Stanton was
promised independence, his contract did not give him what Hollywood
calls final cut, or complete control over the finished film.
Mr. Stanton received a green light to proceed on "John Carter" in 2009
by Richard W. Cook, then Disney's studio chairman. There were red
flags from the beginning.
Mr. Stanton had never directed a live-action movie before. He wanted
to cast no-name actors. And the screenplay, based on a story by Edgar
Rice Burroughs that was serialized in 1912 and later published in book
form as "A Princess of Mars," was a bewildering mash-up, starting
during the Civil War and moving to the Old West before leaping to a
planet called Barsoom (Mars), home to tusked, four-armed creatures
called Tharks.
But Mr. Stanton passionately lobbied to make the movie, and there was
a compelling argument to say yes, Disney officials said. His story
pitch was simple and gripping: "Indiana Jones on Mars." Big payoffs in
the movie business typically come from big gambles, and the thinking
among some at the studio was that this could be Disney's "Avatar."
Enlarge This Image
Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures
"Finding Nemo" is among Mr. Stanton's string of movie successes at Pixar.
Jason Merritt/Getty Images
Rich Ross, the chairman of Disney Studios, whose prior experience was
as a television executive.
Moreover, Mr. Stanton, whose writing credits include "Monsters, Inc."
and all three "Toy Story" movies, had a strong track record with
difficult material. People were skeptical about "Wall-E," about a
computer that does not talk, but Mr. Stanton turned it into a
blockbuster with more than $521 million in global ticket sales. There
were also prerelease doubts about "Finding Nemo," which took in $868
million. Both won Oscars.
Didn't he deserve the benefit of the doubt?
If Disney gave Mr. Stanton rope, he certainly ran with it. Accustomed
to reworking scenes over and over at Pixar, he did not take well to
the usual constraints of live-action — nailing it the first time — and
went back for at least two lengthy reshoots. "The thing I had to
explain to Disney was, 'You're asking a guy who's only known how to do
it this way to suddenly do it with one reshoot,' " he told The Los
Angeles Times. "I said, 'I'm not gonna get it right the first time.
I'll tell you that right now.' "
Mr. Stanton leaned heavily on his colleagues at Disney-owned Pixar for
guidance, paying less attention to input from people with experience
in live-action filmmaking, according to people who worked on the
movie.
To be fair, though, Disney managers did not have a wealth of
live-action experience on which to draw. Mr. Iger had fired Mr. Cook
(for reasons unrelated to "John Carter") and replaced him with Rich
Ross, a television executive. Mr. Ross, who arrived shortly before Mr.
Stanton began filming, had never overseen production of a big-budget
movie before. Mr. Ross hired lieutenants who were also inexperienced
in managing filmmakers, notably Sean Bailey as head of production and
MT Carney as marketing chief.
Supporters of Mr. Ross concede that he faced a steep learning curve,
but insist he had no choice but to let Mr. Stanton proceed; "John
Carter" had been in preproduction for a year by the time he arrived.
They pointed to Mr. Ross's recent standoff with Gore Verbinski over
the budget of a "Lone Ranger" remake as evidence that he can stand up
to strong-willed directors — and jolt the studio out of its rut — when
necessary.
Regardless, when push came to shove on "John Carter," Mr. Stanton
usually got his way. One area in which he exerted his influence was
marketing, where he frequently rejected ideas from Ms. Carney and her
team, according to people who worked on the film.
He insisted, for instance, that a Led Zeppelin song be used in a
trailer, rejecting concerns that a decades-old rock tune did not make
the material feel current. Mr. Stanton also was behind the selection
of billboard imagery that fell flat, and he controlled an important
presentation of footage at a Disney fan convention that got a chilly
reception.
By the time "John Carter" had its Los Angeles premiere last month, the
film had suffered months of ridicule on the Internet and had taken on
a funereal aura. "I've never had something healthy get treated like a
corpse," Mr. Ross told Variety. Mr. Stanton brushed off skeptics at
the premiere, saying, "You just gotta trust us."
Reviews were not as blistering as some had expected, but they were not
good, with critics calling the film a hectic hybrid of other movies:
"Avatar" meets "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace" meets
"Gladiator" meets "Prince of Persia" meets any of John Ford's
westerns. Mr. Stanton has two "John Carter" sequels planned, but those
ambitions are now almost assuredly derailed.
If Mr. Stanton has any comfort, it may be that he keeps good company
in the trophy-movie-gone-wrong hall of fame. Baz Luhrmann is there for
"Australia," along with George Lucas for "Howard the Duck" and Michael
Cimino for "Heaven's Gate." And, of course, Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Beatty
for "Ishtar."
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/business/media/ishtar-lands-on-mars.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
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