10 Movies Too Big To Fail (That Did It Anyway)

3. John Carter

Why It Was "Too Big"

Versions of John Carter were considered for the movie treatment as far back as 1931, but it took until 2012 for Disney to get it over the line. They handed the reigns to upcoming Pixar director Andrew Stanton and gave him a HUGE budget to accomplish his goal of making Indiana Jones in space. It was designed to be their big live-action tentpole of that year.

In fact, Disney were so confident that a trilogy was planned.

Why It Failed Anyway

John Carter might well be Disney's biggest marketing fail. Nobody knew what it was or that it is genuinely pretty good (despite the critical consensus being mostly against it) and the blame has to be laid at Stanton's feet as he took the lead on marketing. He also removed the Of Mars from the title, believing it would lead to a poor box office return and that it would compromise the film's origin story status. Seriously, what the hell does "John Carter" say to a casual mainstream audience?

Nothing, it turns out. It didn't even mean anything to fans of the original book series the film was based on, catastrophically. It made just over $280m, but it had needed to generate worldwide tickets sales of more than $600 million to break even, according to Hollywood.com. Swing and a miss.

The Damage

Disney took a huge financial bath on John Carter to the tune of a $200m writedown and then head of Disney, Rich Ross was forced to retire after blaming Pixar for Stanton's failure and causing friction.

It also cost Taylor Kitsch his rising star status.