Keep Hope Alive: Disney Loses ‘John Carter’ Rights, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. Plans To Make More Movies
With Disney moving on to bigger, and much, much more profitable things (hello, “Star Wars“), their pre-Lucasfilm acquisition failure of “John Carter” is something the company is eager to move on from. The notorious 2012 sci-fi flop saw the studio take a $200 million loss in the midst of audience disinterest (it earned $284 million worldwide, on a budget of $250 million, oops) and critical lambasting, and yet, there were a core of fans who tried mightily to rally for more. In fact, one particularly driven group hit the floor of Comic-Con in 2012 to try and collect signatures to urge Disney to keep the flame burning for the Edgar Rice Burroughs property. It didn’t work out, but fans of the source material can keep hope alive.
Disney has dropped the rights to “John Carter,” with the property now reverting back to Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. And that company’s plan is to try and make the character work on the big screen again. “We will be seeking a new partner to help develop new adventures on film as chronicled in the eleven Mars novels Burroughs wrote. This adventure never stops,” said company president James Sullos in a statement. “Along with a new ‘Tarzan‘ film in development by Warner Bros., we hope to have ‘John Carter Of Mars‘ become another major franchise to entertain world-wide audiences of all ages.”
