Thescreescore – Disney’s history with science fiction is a rollercoaster of triumphs and colossal failures. While they boast iconic franchises, some ventures have crashed and burned spectacularly. Even before acquiring 20th Century Fox’s sci-fi gems, Disney’s forays into the genre yielded mixed results, with films like 1979’s The Black Hole and the original TRON initially deemed box office disappointments despite later cult followings. However, few flops compare to the catastrophic underperformance of 2012’s John Carter.
The film, intended to launch a sprawling franchise based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom novels, instead left Disney with a staggering $200 million loss and led to the resignation of studio chief Rich Ross. Thirteen years later, star Taylor Kitsch offered a retrospective on the debacle in an interview with The Guardian. While acknowledging his own performance as a factor, Kitsch remains uncertain about the precise reasons for John Carter‘s failure: "There’s so many cogs in that wheel of movies, man. I’m literally such a small part of it. I don’t know if it’s timing, or a million cooks in the kitchen, or it just didn’t hit."
Despite the film’s commercial failure, Kitsch expressed pride in his work, stating, "Over time, you gave it the best you could. I’m proud of the way I led that shoot. You move on." However, John Carter‘s legacy extends beyond Kitsch’s performance. The film’s failure not only derailed Kitsch’s potential as a franchise lead but also indefinitely shelved plans for adaptations of Burroughs’ other Martian tales.
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Disney allowed the film rights to revert to the Burroughs estate in 2014, making a Disney-led revival unlikely. While time may offer a fresh perspective for another studio to potentially resurrect the property, John Carter remains a stark reminder of Disney’s most expensive sci-fi misstep. And while Kitsch has moved on, the character, and the potential of the Barsoom saga, still deserves a better fate. Source: The Guardian
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