The exit of Disney marketing president MT Carney on Monday creates yet more drama around “John Carter," the $250 million sci-fi epic that may be the biggest studio gamble since “Avatar.”
The film doesn’t hit theaters until March, but reports are rampant that "John Carter" has gone over budget and required costly reshoots.
A lackluster early trailer didn't help the buzz and now, without a marketing executive to lead the global rollout, the pressure on "John Carter" is more intense than ever.
“It doesn’t just have to open big -- it has to be one of the top grossing films of all time,” a rival studio executive told TheWrap.
Also read: She's Really Gone: Disney Confirms MT Carney's Exit as Marketing Chief
A film of this size and scope typically requires a marketing budget of roughly $120 million, adding to the price tag.
All eyes are on Disney to see if the studio can turn the lead character from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ once beloved, now largely forgotten 11-volume Mars series into a $700 million blockbuster. Its director, Andrew Stanton, admitted to the New Yorker in October, that it will have to gross that much worldwide to justify a sequel.
That’s more than “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” and “Iron Man” have banked during their theatrical runs.
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Only one March release, “Alice in Wonderland,” has ever exceeded that benchmark, and it was able to rack up over $1 billion globally thanks in no small part to the combined talents of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.
In contrast, “John Carter” is relying on untested “Friday Night Lights” star Taylor Kitsch and Stanton, who scored hits with “Wall-E” and “Finding Nemo” but is hardly a household name. Stanton has had great success with animation -- winning Oscars for both those movies -- but he's never shot a live-action film before.
Ironically, Kitsch is also starring in “Battleship,” a $200-million-plus film from Universal that has set off rumors in the blogosphere of a similarly troubled production.
Subsequent "John Carter" trailers and TV spots have received a more favorable reception, and there's still time to build excitement for the outerspace adventure, but there's no denying the stakes.
Disney declined to comment.
Compounding those challenges is the ouster of Disney's controversial president of movie marketing Carney, who had been overseeing "John Carter"s' rollout. The movie opens in two months, but with Carney out and Disney still searching for her replacement, it will be left to the studio's inhouse team to handle the opening.
The studio has not hired an outside marketing consultant for "John Carter," nor does it plan to, an individual with knowledge of the situation told TheWrap.
Marketing issues aside, some industry observers tell TheWrap that a movie this risky should never have been made -- at least not at this budget.
