http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17442200

To me it just looked like a cross between Avatar, the last quarter of Attack of the Clones and the new Clash of the Titans. I don't know how the hell Disney thought this could be acceptable.

Not surprised. With the size of the budget for most blockbuster films (plus the advertising costs) its no surprise that there would be the odd flop now and again.

Whether it recoups most of the money in the long run via dvd/blu-ray sales etc remains to be seen.

I didn't like the adverts for it. I'd actually never even heard of it until I saw the adverts on tv.

That is a lot of money x.x

No one seems to have mentioned this at all, no friends, family or Twitter People.

I admit that first time I heard of this movie was the news it had flopped in the box office, I assume everyone's saving there pennies for The Hunger Games and The Avengers.

So this film was panned by critics, bombed at the box office... Does someone want to explain this to me?



Are there thousands of people out there who just buy every single Blu-ray release that comes out, or what? I could perhaps understand if it was on sale at £5.99, but there are enough people out there prepared to spend £18 to propel it to the top of Amazon's best-seller list?

Disney bribing Amazon? Wouldn't surprise me, all the big corporations pat each other's back in some form or another.

Hmm, I wouldn't believe you for a second normally but then I remembered how Aniplex had trouble after they were called out on helping sales for their BDs bubble in Japan, by buying them, themselves.

To be honest though, I saw the trailer for John Carter and assumed it was the sequel to Avatar or something, I'm actually disappointed it wasn't because "Avatar 2" flopping would fill me with so much pleasure that it could be harnessed as a clean energy source for the next thousand years.

Basically every Hollywood film recoups its losses through home video eventually (even famous box office bombs like Waterworld). John Carter has the distinct advantage of tanking not because people especially disliked it (remembering that a 51 metacritic actually means 'mixed or average' in movie review terms, unlike something like video games where it means 'this product will give you a random STD'), but because they hadn't heard of it when it was released, and if they had they had no idea why they should care.

When a movie tanks at the box office, and there are a few voices out there that say it's not as bad as the box office situation makes out, and people realise that it has Pixar staff attached to it (they're not household names, but when you know what they're responsible for that does factor into your opinion), you may just appear in the top slot of the bestsellers that one time somebody looks.

Or we could go with the 'more money than sense' version that you describe, since it's the 3D version. Actually, yeah, that seems more logical.

Yeah big Hollywood movies flopping horribly at box office, but than becoming a success on DVD is a known phenomenon. It happens to a lot of films, I remember the same thing happened to that Alexander film with Collin Farrell years ago. I guess people don't mind watching vaguely entertaining bollocks so much when its at home.

Yeah, "eventually" I get, that implies a kind of slow burning but constant stream of sales in the years following release. This seems more like immediately, but I guess the things kupo mentioned could account for that. Still...

"Hey, y'know that film the critics didn't like and we didn't go to see at the cinema? Let's pre-order it on 3D Blu-ray for £18."

They probably don't even have 3DTVs either.

My mum bought this film the other week, I only just stopped crying today. Regardless I'll acknowledge the movies existence purely to rub in the face of my not so happy friend whose name is conveniently John Carter. xD

Yeah I don't get that film, it's had like 3 different cuts of it released i.e. the same number as Blade Runner.