If movies were titled like John Carter…

Today I finally got around to seeing John Carter and I have to admit that it was quite enjoyable (review here). One thing I did wonder about and have heard mentioned a couple of times is the name of the movie. I think you will agree that if you don’t know anything about the history of this movie (like most people probably won’t), chances are you won’t be able to guess what it’s about based on that title. They could have added “through space”, “of Mars” or anything else and it possibly would make it clear what kind of movie this is.

Disney now considers the movie a flop and although I don’t think the name is the biggest blame to it (there are some examples of movies working with the name of the main character, like Jackie Brown or Forrest Gump), but if you don’t spend enough on marketing to let people know what that name stands for chances are that people won’t go to see your movie. So what if you would apply this technique to other well known movies, would you be inclined to go see them if you new nothing about them? Find out after the break with some new movie posters for some classic movies.










Which ones would you go and see?

37 thoughts on “If movies were titled like John Carter…

  1. Awesome post! The only one that really works for me is Mister Anderson. Even John Mclane and Marty McFly do not great movie names make. Tyler Durden on the other hand…

  2. Nicely done. I think of the ones you show, only Luke Skywalker really works, and that’s because his name actually does convey the sense that it’s a science fiction character. Mister Anderson almost works, but it implies a much darker persona for the character — I’d expect “Mister Anderson” to be the villain of the piece.

  3. Awesome post. I was discussing how bad the title was just the other day with a friend of mine. The examples you gave are so funny and do, in fact, show how poor was John Carter as a title.
    I don’t think Jake Sully would have been much of a hit…haha

    Niels

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  5. Boy have you got it right! You definitely make an excellent point! Thankfully, I did take a chance and went to see “John Carter.” All I can say is that, well, I ended up going with family and friends to see it 7 times! Disney did a very poor at marketing and advertising for John Carter. Combine that with Disney politics and look what John Carter had to endure. The film was exceptional!! I am so happy I didn’t listen to the reviewers, (especially those before the film even came out! and how doee Disney throw this film under a bus before it’s even released? What was up with that. Well Mr. Ross from Disney has now departed). John Carter had an incomparable cast, fantastic and heart-warming characters, and a beautiful storyline that you wanted to go back to time and time again. Thank you Director, Andrew Stanton! Now John Carter is Number 1 in DVD sales!! So get the DVD, give John Carter a glance, and then…..along with thousands and thousands of fans from all over the world….come and go BACK TO BARSOOM with us!

    • Thanks a lot Jan! I quite liked it as well and it seemed a lot of people jumped on the bandwagon pretty soon when it turned out not a lot of people went to see it. People should give it a chance before judging it.

  6. The IMAGE for “Marty McFly” still makes it interesting. In order to be truly analogous to the John Carter poster, you’d have to place Marty further away and have him doing something with far less action. Even his expression and looking at his watch convey SO MUCH about the story where the Disney poster creators made sure theirs did not. John Carter can jump 1,000 feet into the air and they have him STROLLING on the poster not even weilding a sword?! Epic FAIL!
    Great idea and good execution!

  7. My favorite is the one from avatar. You can actually convey how bland and uninteresting i found the whole movie to be, as i couldnt care less about the characters contrary to what happened in jc.

    • I never reviewed Avatar, but as a first showcase of 3D it was memorable. As for the story itself, I really wasn’t blown away by it and never felt like rewatching it.

  8. One thing you did “wrong” in your representations: TYPEFACES. The typefaces you chose, while those of the original movies, are WAY TOO INTERESTING. That’s another strike the John Carter poster has – the most boring typeface imaginable to match the most non-descriptive title they could have chosen. Still, having said that, I LOVE your representations and they make their point beautifully! Thanks!!

    • I guess I could have, but that wouldn’t be as interesting to make. I’m very happy on how these turned out as it did take quite a bit of time to create them. Thanks for the compliment!

      • “wouldn’t be as interesting to make.” If only the people who DID do the marketing for JC had thought as you. ; ) They might have actually made something interesting to look at to sell their movie. Again, thank you for your outstanding work!

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  10. Nah, I’d have had “Optimus Prime” on the Transformers one! I’d go see THAT!!!

    Nice work Nostra, some of these are pretty funny (and would be pretty stupid if they were real, I think)! Good stuff!!

    • I know that would have made the movie look cooler, but had to go with Witwicky for obvious reasons.

      Thanks Rodney, it was quite a bit of work editing, but looking back at these I’m still very happy with the end result.

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