Disney’s John Carter certainly looks exciting, but it’s still hard to tell what it will actually be about.
When the first trailer for Disney’s John Carter was unveiled, people seemed pretty divided on whether or not the movie looked good. One thing everyone seemed to agree on, though, was that there weren’t nearly enough four-armed Martians or epic battles from Edgar Rice Burroughs’s source novels. Now, Disney’s released a new trailer that’s pretty much nothing but crazy action and Martians.
The trailer showcases a lot of chaotic action sequences, involving swords and (I think) laser beams and (again, I think) at least one large gatling gun. Other than that, it’s hard to tell what Mr. Carter is doing on Mars, wearing a loincloth. The narration implies that he agrees to fight on behalf of the Green Martians, but there’s really nothing else explained in the 50 second-long video.
Disney’s marketing strategy for this film is a risky one. It’s now got two trailers out that provide incredibly different glimpses of the movie, but neither one really explains the movie’s plot. This might not be a problem if the movie was based on a popular intellectual property, but John Carter isn’t nearly as popular as Burroughs’s other literary hero, Tarzan.
John Carter is a pretty massive undertaking, with a $200 million budget, which is why the limited amount of marketing so far is a bit surprising. That said, Disney’s got a little time to kick things up, since the movie is due out on March 9th.
