John Carter Is Biggest Loser In Box Office History
It took 50 years and it is not going to end up bankrupting the studio, but finally a movie lost more money than Heaven's Gate. Actually movies lose more than Heaven's Gate all the time but it is still considered the worst loser of all time because it did bankrupt the studio. If you have never read the book about the making of Heaven's Gate, you really should. Yes, John Carter was not great, but it did score 51% on Rotten Tomatoes which is not that bad and would not normally equate to a $200M loss. The problem was the marketing. They bought lots of SuperBowl commercials and no one understood the commercials and not sure anyone knew that it was a movie. Plus the name of the movie sucked. Disney spent $100M on marketing and I still only know it was based on a book by the guy who wrote Tarzan and is some guy who goes to Mars. None of these time warp movies did well. Cowboys and Aliens and there was one more. Can't remember but it did poorly too.
