Nobody Knows Who or What John Carter Is

So last night, the missus and I went out to trivia with some friends. One of the questions was about John Carter, and it quickly became obvious that no one else there had ever heard of the character or movie before. Of course, the character has been around for more than 100 years, and has inspired the science fiction community to no end since then, not to mention the movie comes out March 9th. And I really want to watch it. I'm pretty sure there are only like 5 other people who have said those words.

The posters aren't too bad, but overall, the marketing for this movie has been awful.

There are really just a few things that the marketing department needs to tell people to get them excited about the movie, and they have not mentioned any of those things in the trailer. Would you be interested in a story that:

1. is from the writer of Tarzan of the Apes.
2. has been around for more than 100 years and has been a primary inspiration for an entire genre of movies and literature.
3. marks the live-action debut of the director/writer behind Wall-E and Finding Nemo. 

Knowing those things, I don't even need to see a trailer. I want to watch this.



Unfortunately, the name of the movie is as bland as they come (it's an adaptation of A Princess of Mars, so they really should have called it that or John Carter and the Princess of Mars), and they've done a very poor job in presenting the trailers in a way that never tells viewers anything about the story. This should not be a hard sell, but I am really worried that this movie is going to be a flop.

Someone else out there was worried about John Carter as well, so they put together this trailer only from clips that have already been released, and frankly, it's much better than any of the trailers that have been done by the pros. It mentions a few of the points mentioned above and assembles the footage in such a way as to tell part of the story, rather than just random shots of some of the action, giving the action that it does show just a bit more weight (or weightlessness, seeing as how the lower gravity of Mars is a major plot factor in said action). Check it out:

This video came to my attention via one of my favorite nerdy blogs today (here), and I thought that it warranted spreading the word. So yeah, spread the word.



Fun fact: John Carter was very nearly made into the first feature length animated movie. The project was started on and then abandoned prior to work on Snow White.