John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood

by Sellers, Michael D.

  Accompanying the picture release was a brief interview with Andrew Stanton discussing the white apes:

  "They’re sort of an oversized gorilla in the books, and they’re kind of ubiquitous. They’re littered everywhere through at least the first several novels. ....We needed a scene where Carter was going have to get out of his execution sentence in order to move the story forward, and we thought what better than having to go up against this formidable creature?"

  As with many of the misfires in the campaign, there was a foreseeable negative outcome of the release of this particular image. That foreseeable outcome was that those journalists familiar with the iconic arena scene from Attack of the Clones would look at this and think “derivative” unless something was done to pre-empt this response. A simple way of pre-empting it would have been for Andrew Stanton, in the accompanying interview, to talk about how this scene, written by Edgar Rice Burroughs in 1912, was the source of and inspiration for the Attack of the Clones scene. Since the Stanton interview was released with the picture, any responsible journalist who would want to mention the similarity, would at least have to offer Stanton’s counterpoint. The alternative to this pro-active “inoculation” was to simply hope no one noticed the similarity.

  Disney took the second option -- unfortunately, the similarity was noticed. One of the first to pick up the story, publishing within an hour of the EW story going up, was Geek Tyrant, where Joey Paur set the tone of much that would follow:181

  This is a story I've been waiting to see brought to the big screen for a long time, and I'm not excited about it. Neither are a lot of other people, and that's not a good sign.....The image above comes from Entertainment Weekly and it looks like a scene right out of Star Wars.

  Minutes later Matt Goldberg at Collider.com would publish the image and a link to Entertainment Weekly, with commentary that included the following:182

  John Carter is rumored to have an insane budget and while the movie comes out in March, Disney has held off on the marketing and hasn’t built awareness beyond the trailer from July, an edit bay visit, and showing clips at D23 (clips the rest of us haven’t seen). Obviously, there’s still time to get everyone’s attention, but when you think about how much lead time the studio gave to The Muppets compared to a movie based on the less well-known John Carter of Mars, it’s a little difficult to understand why we’re just now getting another image. Hopefully, we’re about to see a lot more and get a better sense of what Stanton’s conjured.

  A few minutes later, Russ Fischer at Slashfilm posted:183

  So, yeah, it’s a little bit like something out of the Star Wars prequels — I could see a few lightsaber-wielding Jedi facing down that thing. We haven’t seen much at all from this movie, and while the trailer left some people pretty cold, I think this is just the beginning of the wave of alien creatures that are going to be revealed from the film.

  A Movie About an Ape . . .

  A larger question which would only get larger as the campaign progressed, was whether the coliseum battle scene between John Carter and white apes, which is not central to the story and conveys nothing of the story’s context, should be afforded such prominence in the marketing. Without context, it simply conjured up images of slaves and gladiators and fantastic beasts at a time when, most marketers would argue, “it’s got cool CGI creatures” is not enough to motivate viewers to part with $12-15 to view a film in theaters.

  By the end of the day on November 23, a total of 32 movie and entertainment sites had picked up the story and run the image, each generating comments and chatter. Once again, the issue of reputation management would come into play. Disney’s “early warning” system (the influencer media) was in place; this “digital focus group” had seen what Disney had offered up, and now that focus group was speaking.

  Reaction to the released image was tepid at best. Apart from citing the Star Wars ‘lookalike’ issue; commenters gave a collective “meh” to the image. First day reaction to what would become the central image using standard “Sentiment Analysis” software of the campaign produced a “positive/negative sentiment ratio” of 6/4, which was dramatically lower than the 9/1 that an opening salvo like this would hope to generate.184

  On Facebook, Disney broke a month of silence, not posting the white ape image, but instead posting the kind of random tease that would typify the Facebook campaign: “Zodanga: a nation of the red men of Barsoom, at war with Dejah Thoris’s beloved Helium.”185 The post drew only 11 comments. On that same day, a second post appeared (one of only a handful of days in the entire campaign when more than 1 post appeared on the John Carter Facebook page: “126 days until John Carter arrives. Share the countdown, and learn more about Barsoom, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the legend of John Carter.” This drew a total of 31 comments. It was only two days after posting the white ape image at IGN that Disney posted it on Facebook, drawing 64 comments.

  The woes and missteps were continuing to mount for John Carter.

  . . . in a Drab, Dusty, Desert

  Next, on November 25, Disney released six images from the film. Curiously, all of the images, with the exception of a shot of a Helium warship sporting blue pennants, were taken from desert scenes and featured a color pallet that was extremely reminiscent of Prince of Persia, and which represented a very tiny sliver of the rich visual elements within the overall film. The white ape scene as well, previously released, also was limited to the “desert” look .

  All images were daylight exterior; no images contained any major sets or production design (other than the Helium flyer); the one image of a Thark showed Tars Tarkas against a brown backdrop that caused him to be almost camouflaged and hardly visible; and the one image of Dejah Thoris was an ill-chosen one that made the “incomparable one” look thick waisted (which Lynn Collins was not), and showed her only in profile from a distance.

  On November 28, 2011, Disney debuted what would become the main John Carter poster through iTunes. The poster featured a new tagline: “Lost in our world. Found in another.” The poster, produced by BLT Communications, was designed by artists Andrew Witt (a former Marine), Nguyen Nguyen, and Ryan Osga.

  One of the first reactions came from Alex Riviello at JoBlo.com, who ran the poster under the headline: “John Carter of Uglytown”186

  The new poster for JOHN CARTER is here and it's really, really red. It might be better than the last one but honestly, anything would be. It's still as bland as can be, nothing that you'd expect for a film that was supposedly a thrilling tale about an immortal being facing giant aliens.

  JOHN CARTER hits theaters March 9th. Will anyone care?

  Gregory Ellwood observed:187

  Red-orange is not a great color scheme for a movie campaign (aka, 'That was one bad poster')

  Again, Disney (and possibly Stanton) took the brand idea for "John Carter" too far with the film's poster . . . It created a retro-esque campaign look that made the film look even less appealing to the under 25 demo . . . from a marketing perspective they [Disney] looked at it as a brand first and not a movie . . . . From the first teaser trailer to the first poster to the outdoor advertising to the final poster and almost every piece of marketing material in-between, too much of the "Carter" campaign was fashioned as a brand campaign, not a movie campaign. The studio did everything possible to try and sell those words "John Carter" in your face as something to associate with fantastic imagery while forgetting the need to sell either a marketing hook or the movie's storyline.188

  The Film Informant, a site which rates movie posters and offers fans the opportunity to rate them as well, gave the poster a devastating 0.8/10 (that’s zero point 8 out of 10), while fans gave it 5.6/10. The critique:189

  You might mistake “JC” for a cartoon judging from this botched new teaser poster, which marks a confusing tone change after the first one-sheet and teaser trailer. For a movie set on the red planet, bright orange makes little sense, and a purple title character isn’t helping. A blah logo design begs the que
stion, what happened to the much cooler logo from the teaser trailer?

  Ironically, the poster came from one of the most successful graphic design houses in Hollywood -- BLT Communications who had done posters for Disney as well as other studios, and whose theatrical poster output in 2012, in addition to John Carter, included Brave, Safe House, The Dictator, Battleship, Prometheus, The Avengers, Spiderman, Total Recall, and more. John Carter, seen among these other posters, clearly stands out -- but did it stand out in a way that would be effective?190

  Poster designers in external houses like BLT work under the supervision of the creative media director of the studio, in this case Frank Chiocchi. Chiocchi had come to Disney in January 2011 from Universal, and reported to MT Carney while maintaining liaison with Andrew Stanton. Chiocchi is one of the most highly respected creative directors in the business.

  Given the combination of BLT’s and Chiocchi’s credentials, the question arises -- who was the driving force behind the creatives that were starting to come out. Was it Stanton, or Carney, or someone else?

  Much later, after the film had been released, at least one Carney surrogate was widely quoted as saying that Stanton’s stature was such because of his Pixar success that he was given full final approval over all key art and trailers, and that he and Carney had multiple arguments that “ended with the brash department head almost reduced to tears”, with Stanton “winning every battle” and summing it up: “They throw petals at his feet . . .”191

  Professionals close to Stanton, and Stanton himself, say otherwise, claiming that while he was engaged on the marketing, mainly in consultations with Chiocchi, he had little direct contact with Carney and that the relationship with Chiocchi went smoothly and professionally, with reasonable give and take on all sides. "We didn't always agree on which direction to take every step of the way, but there was never serious contention," Stanton said of the studio's marketing. "The truth was everyone tried their very best to crack how to sell what we had, but the answer proved elusive."192

  Regardless of where it was coming from -- one thing that was clear is that the peculiar choices that dogged the John Carter marketing creatives were unlikely to be a result of the Chiocchi, Tamusaitis, or the artists at BLT Communications.

  Meanwhile, the poster hit with a thud.

  The fact that many of those commenting on the poster referred to it as a “teaser poster” reflects the fact that, for a final theatrical poster for a film based on an unknown property, the imagery was exceptionally oblique. For a hundred years the same material had been conceptualized by book cover artists in a manner that was completely different, emphasizing fantastic aliens, swashbuckling adventure, and always -- John Carter and Dejah Thoris. The absence of Dejah Thoris from the primary poster was a strategic decision, not an accident: Disney had deemed that John Carter was a “boys” movie targeted at young boys age 10-14; it was an “adventure” brand in development; and the presence of Dejah Thoris would muddy the waters.

  Dejah Thoris was out, and she would never appear on a single poster except once, in the distant background, a tiny unrecognizable figure on a thoat.

  Things were about to get worse.

  “That Trailer” is Unveiled

  Andrew Stanton had learned from Pixar cofounder Steve Jobs the mantra that “you only get one chance to make a first impression,” and for millions of Americans their first impression of John Carter would be the trailer that appeared on Good Morning America, the morning of November 30, 2011. Disney and ABC touted in advance that this would be the “World Premiere” of the trailer, and for the influencers who had been following the saga of the film, this was must-see television.

  A number of outlets commented on the advisability of Disney choosing Good Morning America for the premiere of the trailer, wondering how Disney marketing had selected this particular demographic for a movie like John Carter. In fact, the choice of Good Morning America reflected perfectly the decision by MT Carney to target boys ages 10-14, since this would reach the Moms, and some Dads, who were needed to get those “tween” boys to the theater. So from Disney’s point of view; it was a logical choice -- however to the observers who were still looking at John Carter as a four quadrant mass appeal film with demographics similar to Avatar or Prometheus, the choice seemed strange indeed.

  After having promoted the event in advance as the premiere of the full theatrical trailer, Disney decided instead to show only a 45 second cut-down of the two minute trailer -- with the impact of the first 11 seconds being diminished by the fact that it was shown by having a camera point zoom in on the big screen over Times Square.193 The decision to go with a 45 second TV spot instead of the two minute trailer--even though it had been trumpeted loudly as the premiere of the full trailer -- reflected two factors; first, the exigencies of network morning television, and second, Disney’s focus on the wider GMA audience and failure to consider the early adopter and influencer audience that would also be watching. Proclaiming that what would be shown was the full trailer, and then showing a 45 second clip degraded by the first 11 seconds being shot off the Times Square screen, might have slipped unnoticed past that wider audience who was getting its first taste of the movie -- but it did not play well with the influencer audience.

  Matt Goldbert of Collider.com wrote “The trailer (or at least the cut that aired on Good Morning America) is short and not sweet . . .” and then a few hours later: “2nd UPDATE: Disney has asked us to refer to this as a “sneak peek” . . . which is the idiotic world of double-marketing we live in. If you want to see the full trailer in all its wonder, it will run tonight at 9:00 PM PST on IGN.”194 All across the internet, the influencer sites put out stories in the first hour after the GMA airing, only to subsequent update the stories at Disney’s request, redefining the GMA event after the fact as a “sneak peek” of the trailer, not the trailer debut that had been promised. That was now scheduled for 9PM PST tonight.

  Another blunder had occurred.

  On Twitter, Andrew Stanton responded to a barrage of tweets asking if what was shown on GMA was actually the full trailer:195

  @andrewstanton: “@Illusion0fLife: Was the trailer on GMA the full cut or will we get a longer version online later today?” Long version on Kimmel and online.

  Apart from the issue of how Disney had chosen to unveil the “sneak peek,” there was the matter of the trailer itself. Many commentators simply posted the GMA sneak peek without comment; a few acknowledged that it was better than the teaser trailer released in July, but by far the majority who voiced any opinion at all, voiced concern. Katy Rich at Cinema Blend.com encapsulated much of the commentary:196

  The brief bit they've shown, though, is emphasizing the massive spectacle and battle scenes of the Mars world that Stanton has built . . . It's still hard to look at this, with its alien creatures and flying spaceships and man in a loincloth, and assume that anybody beyond hardcore sci-fi audiences will go for it. What I think will make John Carter work is the story, pounded out relentlessly by Pixar veteran Stanton, and it's hard to get a sense of that in a trailer that seems to be all about spectacle.

  Finally 16 hours later, after more than 50 media outlets had weighed in on the “sneak peek” version, resulting in social media reactions that skewed negative yet again, the full trailer appeared online on IGN, and on TV on Jimmy Kimmel Live, where Kitsch was a guest.

  The full version of the trailer opens with an aerial shot of the Thark coliseum, then cut to Tars Tarkas and John Carter seen from behind entering the arena --- a shot that directly resembles a specific and very famous shot from the arena scene from Attack of the Clones.197 A voice is heard: “Let them be crushed,” then Carter is seen battling a white ape. The white ape opening occupies the first 30 seconds of the trailer, ending with Carter leaping over the ape and slaying it. While the trailer was criticized for not specifying where the action is taking place, there are meant to be clues that it is on another planet including Tars Tarkas’ line: “When I saw you I thought th
at something new can come into this world...”, and Dejah Thoris: “You...are...John Carter of Earth,” as well as the graphics cards reading: “Lost in our world, found in another.”

  Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News was one of those who liked the new full trailer: “I just got finished watching this trailer about a half dozen times. I'm actually really intrigued. It is most definitely aesthetically its own thing. Very curious to see how this JOHN CARTER re-imagining will go.”198 Another one of those who found the trailer encouraging was Joey Paur at GeekTyrant.com, who until the release of this trailer had been using words like “underwhelmed” and “unimpressed” but who now wrote: “I really want this movie to be good. I will say this is the best trailer I've seen so far, and I'll admit, it actually ended up getting me a little excited to see the movie.”199

  A more typical mixed reaction came from Angie Han at Slashfilm, who wrote:200

  I wasn’t blown away by that first trailer and this morning’s preview of this new trailer didn’t impress me much either. So I’m surprised and pleased to find that I like this longer trailer more, though it’s possible that the anticipation just has me feeling more generous. We get a great look at the scope and beauty of this world in this video, and there’s no denying that it all looks very pretty. On the other hand, star Taylor Kitsch still doesn’t appear to have anything terribly interesting to do, and the dialogue is still painfully generic.