Sci-Fi Storm

Even though many of Marvel’s characters live over at nearby Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure, Disney will be showing off some of them at Walt Disney World. To celebrate the upcoming movie The Avengers, WDW will be “wrapping” (covering with a durable but removable skin) one of their Monorail trainsets with an advertisement for the movie, similar to how they created the “Tron-o-rail” for the release of Tron: Legacy.

Monorail decorated for The Avengers - click to embiggen

It appears there are still some restrictions, though…word is this particular monorail will be restricted to the Magic Kingdom routes, and will not travel to Epcot – possibly because the beam track to Epcot actually runs within the park itself, which may violate the contract or agreement in place that restricts what can be done within the parks.

I’m hearing from various directions this evening that the loss for Disney’s John Carter is worse than analysts predicted, with Disney taking a $200 million write-off and Disney Studios expected to have a loss of $120 million in the quarter. Analysts were predicting $50-100 million less.

Now that The Hunger Games gets released this week, no one expects any appreciable income for John Cater in the coming weeks, and it appears they are not expecting a strong DVD market for the movie either.

If you remember, Disney made a big announcement in September that it was going to build an Avatar-themed land at the Animal Kingdom park in Walt Disney World in Florida. But since then there has been little said, and no visible work has been done.

If you follow Disney fan boards, there has been a large uptick in speculation that Disney put the plan on hold or even outright canceled it, and given how long it might be before we see the next movie, the costs, etc. it seemed that could have been the case.

Well, at today’s shareholder meeting for the corporation, Disney President/CEO Bob Iger and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts chairman Tom Staggs talked about some upcoming things, and Avatar was specifically mentioned. They are still working on the plans, and the “land” themed for Pandora will likely not open until 2015, which could put it around the time of the sequels.

During a Q&A period, Iger was asked about how John Carter would affect the financials of the corporation, but Iger said it was too early to tell.

The key word is “survive” – after the weekend where all eyes were on Disney and the predicted major flop of John Carter, the $250 million budget movie opened to a $30.6 million domestic weekend (and word was is that Disney brass hoped to see that 3), but perhaps amazingly it took in $70.6 million in overseas markets. But still, the performance is still poor, and some analysts believe it needs needs about $600 million globally to break even.

Reviews are fairly polarized – it’s still 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, but with 72% of the audience liking it. And among the fan community, I’m hearing from various places that some believe some negative reviewers may not have even watched the movie.

I’m going to try and check the movie out myself later this week, with a hopefully open mind.

Despite the fact that some members of the media seem to want to see John Carter crash and burn terribly, and the early returns aren’t great (it is looking at a ~$10 million Friday and $30+ million weekend, for a solid #2 behind The Lorax), I’ve been hearing a lot of good comments. Here is a review from Inside the Magic on why it’s worth seeing. And it appears that the movie struck big in Russia, where it took in $6.5 million – and is the country’s biggest ever opening day. Rating are mixed on Rotten Tomatoes where it is currently 51%.

Did Disney’s lack of understanding how to market the film doom it, or has the last-minute effort had some effect to save it?

I’m not sure when I’ll get the chance to see it, but I’ll let you know when I do.

OK, this looks like the first salvo from Disney’s renewed marketing push…an extended scene involving John Carter’s battle with the white apes in the gladiator ring, plus another trailer-type montage following it.

Does this improve things? At first, I was thinking how fake the whole jumping and landing looked – but then again, he’s supposedly fighting on a world with less gravity – maybe it isn’t so far fetched.

Disney’s John Carter, based on the Barsoom series of novels by author Edgar Rice Burroughs, opens March 9th, but Disney is scrambling to save the big budget film from bad buzz…and Disney itself may be to blame.

Last month it was announced that tracking numbers for the movie were mind-numbingly poor – people just weren’t that interested in it. And why should they be? Do you know what the movie is about? People who read this site might, especially since I described what it was based on above…but if you only went by the trailers, would you know? Or would you think it’s just a Conan clone? It wasn’t helped by the fact that “of Mars” was dropped from the title in all marketing material last year, which might have actually clued people in more as to the subject – I know people familiar with the books who didn’t know the movie was based on them. The title doesn’t give any indication what the movie is about, except it is about a guy. But Disney was apparently skittish about associating any movie with the planet Mars, given the massive flop of Mars Needs Moms, as well as previous Mars movies – Disney also had flops in Mission to Mars and Mars Attacks!. Disney’s former marketing president, MT Carney, has taken most of the blame but there were failures at several levels.
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My wife is participating in a “virtual fair” fundraiser for Give Kids the World Village in Florida. This organization brings terminally ill children and their families to the Disney area! We are trying to raise a million dollars for this wonderful organization.

If you need any books for your children or friends, please consider checking out her website. She will be donating up to 45% of her profit to this amazing charity! There are 12 other vendors that are also donating proceeds to this charity. Feel free to order from any of the charities!

http://powerof10fair.blogspot.com/
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David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), who was attached last year to direct the long-developing Disney 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea prequel movie about Captain Nemo and his creating of the Nautilus, looks to be teaming up with his Se7en screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (The Wolfman) to take the latest pass on the script.

The project has been in development for years, as Disney has been trying to find a way to bring back Captain Nemo, whether it be a remake of its own classic film or a new story. Disney had previously scuttled a version being developed by McG.

Disney just announced plans to construct a new land as part of it’s existing Animal Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World themed to James Cameron’s Avatar franchise. Cameron, producing partner Jon Landau and Lightstorm Entertainment will work closely with Walt Disney Imagineering to develop the plans, and expect construction to start in 2013.

Disneyphiles familiar with the creation of Animal Kingdom park are aware that when it was built, a planned section of the park was never built due to budget cuts, called “Beastly Kingdomme”, an area to be filled with creatures both magical and mystical. In fact, the Dueling Dragons rollercoaster at Universal’s Islands of Adventure park (now called Dragon Challenge as part of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter) was originally designed for Beastly Kingdomme but scrapped with the area. By the sounds of it, this new Avatar land would likely take the still-undeveloped location, and perhaps even incorporate some of the area’s original designs, with new theming.

I’ll definitely provide updates as they come in over the next couple years.

The first sequel to Avatar is scheduled to hit screens on Christmas 2014.