10 Movies That Prove Pod People Run Hollywood

A $250 million epic fail that could only appeal to a soulless clone, John Carter was Disney’s attempt to wring a franchise out of the Edgar Rice Burroughs character, which does not bode well for the forthcoming Tarzan remake starring Alexander Skarsgard.

With its Avatar-like aliens and expensive action sequences, John Carter must’ve looked like a great “package” to the Pod People, but the lack of character motivation and backstory, coupled with an editing style that reduces every shot to three seconds (or less), means the film plays more like a 2 hour long trailer. There’s a shapeshifting alien, a beautiful Martian princess and some hoo-hah about a medallion, but the filmmakers don’t want to give the viewer any more information than that for fear of slowing the movie down.

The resulting picture keeps the audience at arms’ length throughout, and when the critics proved predictably unkind (USA Today called it “bloated, dreary and humourless”), the film struggled to a $73 million domestic haul in US cinemas.