So far the John Carter pickings have been slim at best. This whole movie has been marketed so badly, I can't help but think someone at Disney is really sabotaging this thing from the inside. I mean, it did fall from Pixar to Disney's responsibility fairly late in production, got reduced from a summer to spring release and there is next to nothing based on it available in stores. It's not like Disney hasn't done this in the past. I hear there was a whole plan to destroy Home On The Range. Who knows if that's true, or not though. All I know is that is pretty depressing when all I can find on a major motion picture based on the series that started it all is stuff like this:
I can't even tell if these things are homemade, or official. :( 
This is the promo pack people that won the John Carter early showing contests got. A hand towel, a t-shirt no one would recognize as having anything to do with John Carter of Mars, two flimsy looking cups, some decent tattoos (I guess) and run of the mill theater cards. Yippee!
It's not I am expecting to see the costumes up for grabs, but some dolls or something would be nice. Heck even Prince of Egypt had dolls based on Moses:
I guess the times really have changed. Still when I see production images like this used as posters on E-bay I have to wonder if their original purpose wasn't to be on the side of some toy box? 
What kid wouldn't want a fast moving Woola toy? Or a Thark figure with his giant thoat stead? Very Star Wars if you ask me...
Back in the 90s every scene would have been nicely milked. How about Sola's nursery play set with hatching Green Martian eggs? Watch 'em grow in water! 
As it stands, being in Canada, I can't even order from the Disney Store official site. None of our Disney Stores got any merchandise either. It's pretty sad....maybe in another 100 years I can get my John Carter figure. I doubt I am as immortal as John though... >__<
I'm not surprised Disney is marketing the movie poorly. They have been really cheap and bearish (I think that's the wall street term) as of late. I have no idea why they're guarding their coffers so strictly but if you want to make money you're going to have to spend some.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean. Disney doesn't have the Juggernaut of a marketing force they used to have. When I was at Disney I was totally shocked at the lack of Tron and various other films. I thought I might see some John Carter stuff. (Even though it was still some time off.)
DeleteThey seem to have declined a lot. Most of what they push is in the Princess line.
When I see pictures like this I wonder what happened.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenjavier/5118918331/in/photostream/
Yep you are right, you have to spend money to make money. You know, the only thing I ever heard of regarding the movie from Disney was that they felt the movie was a write off. Even when Disney has a total stinker, they promote the crap out of it. Considering the positive marketing that goes into their teenybopper crap, (stuff that should fail, yet succeeds and gets tons of merchandising), I'm convinced they really want the movie to do badly.