John Carter

[Fernando]

Trailer

[polkablues]

Normally, I would see that trailer and go "meh".  But come on.  Tim Riggins and Andrew Stanton.  Of course I'll see that shit.

Not a fan of dropping "of Mars" from the title, though.  There's a major trend in Hollywood right now that leans toward genericizing titles as much as possible.  I think the theory is that the more boring a title, the more people can be tricked into seeing it.  Worked for Avatar.

[Pubrick]

I agree this really needed to keep the full title.

I can understand studios finally becoming hip to the fact a title like the invention of Hugo cabret sound too much like the fantabulous contraption of professor horatio hufnagel.. but here a simple dumb name says nothing of the film, especially when its already so reminiscent of avatar.

It really needs all the help it can get in establishing its own identity.. removing of mars does pretty much literally the oppsosite of that.

[polkablues]

Just makes it sound like it's a movie about Noah Wyle's character from E.R.

[pete]

has anyone read the novel? thus far the trailer looks mighty generic.

[pete]

lengthy interview with andrew stanton
http://www.slashfilm.com/interview-andrew-stanton-talks-john-carter/?

[MacGuffin]

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer here.

[MacGuffin]

Andrew Stanton Explains 'John Carter' Name Change, Says Girls Won't See A Movie With 'Mars' In The Title
Source: Playlist

Many fanboys and literary fanatics became ruffled when Disney (and director Andrew Stanton) changed the name of this spring's Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation "John Carter of Mars" to, simply, "John Carter." Apparently Stanton was in London to screen twenty minutes of footage from the hotly anticipated film and during the presentation he explained to assorted journalists (including someone from Bleeding Cool) why the film had undergone a surgical title snip. And, well, it's not exactly going to silence those that feel Pixar (which was unofficially involved in "John Carter") is a boys club.

"Here's the real truth of it. I'd already changed it from 'A Princess Of Mars' to 'John Carter Of Mars.' I don't like to get fixated on it, but I changed 'Princess Of Mars'... because not a single boy would go," Stanton told the journalists.

Keep in mind that Pixar, the studio where Stanton wrote and directed "Finding Nemo" and "WALL-E" (and where he serves as part of the secretive, highly influential Brain Trust), has been loudly criticized for its perceived lack of interest in telling stories with strong female characters (or, really, any female characters at all). The studio came under fire again when they fired Brenda Chapman, who was set to be the studio's first female director (on next summer's "Brave"), severing her ties with a highly personal project (and, indeed, forcing her out of the studio, including her own position on the Brain Trust, completely). Disney is trying to claim that Pixar had very little to do with "John Carter" but from what we understand it was conceptualized and developed almost wholly at Pixar (and when selected journalists were invited to preview footage out of the editing bay earlier this year, well, they didn't go to Disney, they went to Pixar). Basically, if you called "John Carter" "Pixar's first live action film," you wouldn't exactly be wrong. 

This title change, and the reasoning behind it, especially put into the terms Stanton uses, sounds like the big money equivalent of "ewww girls are icky," but Stanton tries to put on a brave face. With a move from "Princess of Mars" to "John Carter of Mars," well, apparently that still sounded too manly for little girls who can't handle things associated with the red planet (or the Roman god of war) and presumably only want to play with dolls and wear pink bows in their hair.

"And then the other truth is, no girl would go to see [a movie called] 'John Carter Of Mars'. So I said, 'I don't want to do anything out of fear, I hate doing things out of fear, but I can't ignore that truth,'" Stanton explained at the London presentation. We wonder if he's referring to "Mars Needs Moms" too, since that was a costly animated flop for Disney earlier this year (one that effectively ended their relationship with Robert Zemeckis and his ImageMovers Digital company). 

While the move was clearly a nakedly commercial one, he also dug down and tried to explain it away thematically, "All the time we were making this big character story which just so happens to be in this big, spectacular new environment. But it's not about the spectacle, it's about the investment. I thought, I've really worked hard to make all of this an origin story. It's about a guy becoming John Carter. So I'm not misrepresenting what this movie is, it's 'John Carter.'" Right. 

If there are more films (and, given the amount of cash Disney has sunk into this sci-fi money pit, that's a pretty big IF), Stanton promises that "of Mars" will be part of the title. "Mars is going to stick on any other film in the series. But by then, it won't have a stigma to it." Andrew Stanton - clearing Mars' good name! Well we can all get a good look at the Mars-less "John Carter" when it opens March 9th, 2012. Get your ass to Mars!

[Pubrick]

that is so ridiculous. of mars is interesting, john carter is the most boring name ever created.

he says he hates doing things out of fear and then that he just couldn't "deny the truth" that girls apparently would never see a movie with the word mars on the title. well fuck that, you just did something out of fear and not out of love which is supposed to be the pixar way. i don't think things will go well for this wannabe franchise. it might be a good movie but i would have no interest in it if i didn't know the pixar backstory.

also what's this about a falling out with brenda chapman.. i wanna know more about that. has pixar turned evil? i know they kicked one guy off a personal project already when they replaced that outsider who was directing Ratatouille and put Brad Bird in charge instead.. but what was the deal with Brave? hope it worked for the best, at least the title change on that film was sensible because Brave is obviously more powerful than "the bow and the whatever the fuck".. sigh, pixar just couldn't hack being the kubrick of animated films (ie. makers of utter perfection).

i guess that kind of pressure would drive almost anyone crazy/evil.

[Sleepless]

I've heard mumblings of people being kicked off personal projects at Pixar before. It would be interesting to learn more about this good/evil issue. When Matt and I heard Lasseter talk at AFF this year he talked about the Pixar creative process and how every work in progress is regularly screened to the Brain Trust and how there is always a lot of feedback given, but that the writer/director is ultimately left to decide which notes they want to take. Could it be that this is not the case? He also made mention that sometimes artists don't want to show their unfinished work saying that "it's not ready" - but that that's not how they do things at Pixar.

Usually, everything we hear about Pixar is great, but I think you're right, P; there must be some seedy underbelly. We know there is at squeaky-clean Disney. Surely there must be at Pixar. Of course, this discussion is completely irrelevant if we don't know the details of Ratatouille and Brave's production history. (And of course it's completely off-topic here too). I hope to think that it's because Pixar just wants to tell the best stories possible, but I'd be interested to learn of how the chasm of vision led to the original creator being cast off (or casting off their original vision) because of "creative differences" with the studio. As it is, Ratatouille is one of my favorite Pixar films. I just hope Brave is good too.

(On a side note: has anyone significant ever become a key part of Pixar - since it's forming - who wasn't a member of Lasseter's infamous Cal Arts class? The only person that comes to mind is Michael Arndt, and I get the impression he's hardly a key member of the studio).

And now back on topic... I really don't know much about the John Carter origin material, but if you have a book you're going to adapt which is called Princess of Mars, well hell that's a far better titled that either John Carter or John Carter of Mars. That's the title you should have kept. Devolving the titled into the bland irrelevance it is now seems to be a crap yet popular trend in Hollywood these days: take away everything unique about a project in order to make it as mulch-quadrant as possible. The emphasis always seems to be on making everything as inoffensive to as many people as possible, rather than crafting something people will actually like. It's a preference for blandness because of this sense of fear which Stanton poorly argues against. From the bits and pieces I've seen, there is a chance that this could actually turn out to be a good film, but I think it's gone off in completely the wrong direction. Maybe it's just the horrendous marketing campaign, but I don't have high hopes for this at all. I really want it to be a good film, but that's what happens when you eliminate "Pixar's first live action film" in favor of "from the studio that brought you The Prince of Persia..."

[polkablues]

(On a side note: has anyone significant ever become a key part of Pixar - since it's forming - who wasn't a member of Lasseter's infamous Cal Arts class? The only person that comes to mind is Michael Arndt, and I get the impression he's hardly a key member of the studio).

Brad Bird, but that's the only one I can think of off the top of my head.

[Sleepless]

He wasn't at Pixar at the beginning, but I'm pretty sure he was a classmate of Lasseter, Stanton, et al.

[polkablues]

Wikipedia says you're right.  Never mind, then.

[polkablues]

This is a great poster, but why, if they dropped Mars from the title, do they still have the M in the logo?