John Carter of Mars
If I remember correctly Disney lost a lot of money on that movie. I liked it though.
yeah, it was one of those movies that I think was ruined by the advertising. All the adverts at the time tried to make it seems like a star wars rip off, when it wasn’t anything like star wars really.
Working out the numbers on IMDB, the estimated budget was $250,000,000. Gross worldwide: $284,139,100. Total from these numbers: $34,139,100.
The number(s) that are not represented, is how much Disney spent to market the movie. And since it was supposed to be their latest tentpole movie franchise, they must have spent the same amount they did on production (and perhaps more,) to market it. This means that Disney might have put $500 million or more into the whole project. Then they would have lost $215,860,900 or more.
Maybe they had to, given the barely passing resemblence to the source material.
Commenting to take notes of movies that weren’t ruined by useless sequels.
I wasn’t really surprised it didn’t get a sequel but I remember that “The golden compass” was made to have sequels from the get go and i think even ended with a cliffhanger, or maybe not. I juste remember feeling like the story was cut short. I didn’t feel this with the Harry potter movies despite being another adaptation of a book, so they probably screwed up.
It’s based on the first book of a trilogy, His Dark Materials, and was a fucking travesty of a film adaptation. I’m honestly glad they didn’t go forward with the rest, I doubt they would have handled the other two any better.
I can’t speak on Amazons attempt, haven’t gotten around to it yet, but can recommend the books. They’re a good read.
His dark Materials? Now, that’s a catchy name.
I really liked the world shown in the movie so will certainly give it a read.
BBC/HBO did a TV adaptation of the full series, aptly called “His Dark Materials”. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I did the books, but it was a good adaptation (and much better than The Golden Compass).
The books won a bunch of awards and were very well received when they released. The first one, Northern Lights (The Golden Compass in the US) came out in 1995 so it was fairly popular for a few years as the “premier” young adult novel, but it ended up being dwarfed in popularity by Harry Potter once that released (as did, well, everything else on the planet).
I think the books were a little less popular and well-received in America. In part because Philip Pullman is a British author, so obviously he got more attention here in the UK. But also, quite a few Christian groups - particularly in America because, let’s be honest, most evangelical Christian groups are American - took issue with His Dark Materials’ world and themes. It doesn’t paint the church in a good light at all, and the series’ God analogue, The Authority, is pretty tyrannical. Although, funnily enough, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, was one of the biggest supporters of the series - he felt it basically highlighted the dangers of dogmatism and attacked the ways religion could be used to oppress rather than Christianity itself - so obviously not all Christians were offended by the series.
Anyway, yes! Not only is the world fantastic (and it only gets more interesting and wild as the series goes on) but it also handles the characters really well. The way it handles the main characters - children who age into teenagers throughout the series - developing feelings for each other and discovering sexuality was done in a really thoughtful and age-appropriate way (for the characters and the audience). It addresses some interesting philosophical concepts, too, including some religious ones - I’d say the spirit, the body and the soul is a pretty key theme throughout, albeit not necessarily in the same way Christianity approaches it
I’d start by reading the books - Northern Lights/The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass - and then watch the TV series. He’s also written other books in the world - some novellas, and (currently) two out of three books in a second trilogy called “The Book Of Dust”.
The Matrix
I’m also surprised that the Terminator series never got a third instalment. Or Aliens, for that matter.
I was really sad about the Aliens franchise ending after two movies. I was really looking forward to seeing what Newt, Ripley, and Hicks got up to in the next installment.
Not necessarily a sequel but kinda surprised they didn’t make a prequel to coraline
I’m not necessarily surprised this one didn’t get a sequel, but I really wish it had!
Event Horizon (1997)
I like the fan theory that Event Horizon is a prequel of sorts to the Warhammer universe.
The theory is basically that in 40k ftl works by sending the ship through the warp (hell). Humans use a Gellar field to keep a bubble of reality around the ship while in the warp. The theory is this is humanities firstf tll so they don’t know they need a Gellar field.
It’s fun but other then the ftl is hell doesn’t fit at all with the rest of 40k lore.
It was apparently too intense for test audiences, and this was in the pre-DVD-special-features era when no one bothered to keep cut footage. Maybe they cut too much. I watched it recently because I had heard fantastic things and I was just… generally unimpressed. It was an interesting concept that really wasn’t very well explored, and the writing was so stiff.
