[Mike Cohen] "Sam Worthington, an unknown, did not hurt Avatar - although most of what people went to see Avatar for had little to do with Sam Worthington."
Exactly. Nobody who went to see John Carter went to see it because of Taylor Kitsch either.
I like him as a choice. Charismatic, experienced, respected among people who enjoy quality work. Friday Night Lights was a critic's darling from outside the Disney family, and 68 episodes as one of the major characters is a good example of working for a living. That's the clock equivalent of 30 movies, right, and if you've read Creative COW Magazine's coverage of the shooting of that show, it's pretty intense: three 16mm cameras rolling non-stop in every scene. No waiting around while they set up YOUR ONE SHOT. Nope, it's wall to wall work from everybody in the scene, in sometimes unusually cramped quarters even for one actor and one camera. Non-stop acting for every scene you're in, with a lot of moving pieces very literally in your face.
We can argue whether he was the best choice, but I like Disney's apparent motives, and what it says about how they hoped it would turn out. My point about John Carter NOT being a cynically constructed movie is that they could have gone with a Disney Channel hunk. Instead, a well-regarded young man with years of quality, if low-profile, work under his belt.
I still think that, from where I sit as just another ignoramus with an opinion, every choice I can see in this production was made for the right reasons.
[Mike Cohen] "I read that Disney removed "from Mars" from the title because they did not want to alienate women, and most movies having to do with Mars have been flops"
Okay, maybe the title could have been better.
Mike, it's not the "about" Mars part that was the problem. It's the word "Mars" in the title. It's one of the "Seven Words That Only Bad Movies Have In Their Titles,"
courtesy of Cracked.com...which probably deserves its own thread.
I obviously have no insight into this beyond what I've read and thought about, but I think Mark might be right that the title change may be the only large-scale conservative choice in the set-up. There are people a lot smarter than me who work on this stuff, but I know that my immediate reaction to the trailers was that it was kind of Conan The Barbarian for my taste (another example of a too-serious remake, btw). I wonder if playing up the sci-fi angle might have worked in their favor.
And to get back to Total Recall, watch Live Free or Die Hard again if you haven't in a while to get a taste of director Len Wiseman's kinetic energy. Other than the scene with Justin Long and OnStar -- I can't believe it's only a minute; it feels like a year -- I thought it was a gas. Definitely enough to make me willing to give Total Recall a try on its own.
