After decades in development, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ original sci-fi action hero John Carter [OMARS] finally makes his $250 million cinematic debut from Disney. Unfortunately, one of the worst marketing campaign in movie history is poised to result in an epic box office failure that won’t even open at number one. Instead, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax [LORAX] looks to retain first place after a $70 million debut last weekend. The animated environmentalist may decay less than 40% to $43 million.
Disney shortened the original title John Carter of Mars out of the fear that moviegoers don’t like movies about Mars. Instead of embracing the fanboy nature of the classic story that inspired Star Wars and Avatar, Disney decided to appeal John Carter to their family audience and ended up pleasing no one. Lousy, incoherent trailers highlighted the generic CG action without explaining the story. Any buzz generated thus far are largely negative. Mixed reviews are unlikely to move those still sitting on the fence. Taylor Kitsch [TKITS] lacks the starpower of even Prince of Persia’s Jake Gyllenhaal, while first time live-action director Andrew Stanton [ANSTA] is no James Cameron. Transporting into 3749 theaters, John Carter may be grounded at just $28 million.
With competition from John Carter for the male demographic, Project X will probably drop more than 50% to $10 million in its sophomore session.
Elizabeth Olsen [EOLSE] stars in the R-rated horror Silent House [SILNH]. Open Road is marketing the film as being in real-time and shown in one continuous take. The gimmicky concept could entice horror fans to fork over $8 million from 2149 locations.
Paramount had shelved A Thousand Words [TWRDS] for years in hopes of Eddie Murphy [EMURP] regaining his box office draw. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened and the PG-13 rated comedy gets dumped into 1890 theaters. A Thousand Words may earn just $5 million.
That’s the whisper from the virtual trading floor.
Tag(s): OMARS, LORAX, TKITS, ANSTA, EOLSE, SILNH, TWRDS, EMURP