The 2012 feature film John Carter was released to coincide with the 101st anniversary of the character's appearance in novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Considered something of a modern mythological hero by fans of Burroughs’ ‘Barsoom’ novel series, the film had a big budget and a hell of a lot of promise. But following its spectacular failure at the box office, future plans were left in limbo. Here’s the latest on when - or if - we might get a John Carter 2.
What do I need to know about John Carter?
For those who didn’t witness its big swing-and-a-miss at the box office, 2012’s blockbuster film John Carter was an (overly) ambitious sci-fi epic directed by Andrew Stanton. The film was conceived based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1912 novel A Princess of Mars.
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The story of John Carter is initially set in a post-Civil War America, where John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), a disillusioned vet, stumbles into a cave and gets zapped to the planet Barsoom (a fictionalised version of Mars). There, thanks to lower gravity, he’s suddenly a superhero, leaping canyons and showing his physical dexterity. He lands in the middle of a Martian civil war, and his desire to get back to Earth is immediately complicated by his desire to help some of the individuals he meets, including Dejah Thoris (played by Lynn Collins) and Tars Tarkas (played by Willem Dafoe).
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An adaptation of the Barsoom series had been in development hell for - checks notes - almost eight decades, before Walt Disney finally gave the green light to Andrew Stanton in the mid-2000s. The film was a big-budget visual feast, with no end to the rich alien landscapes, bombastic CGI, and retro-futuristic tech being utilised by Stanton and his team. Helmed by Taylor Kitsch - and with an excellent support cast that also included Dominic West, Ciaran Hinds, Samantha Morton, and Mark Strong - John Carter was supposed to kickstart a big sci-fi franchise that would conceivably build into a whole new universe and might well compete with the juggernaut that is Star Wars.
But John Carter was a failure (for more reasons than one), and plans for any sequels were put into question following the 2012 box office response. Despite all this, certain fans have always held onto the belief that John Carter will return to the big screen one day, if only the right circumstances are in place…
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How was John Carter initially received by critics and audiences?
Despite the fact that the film grossed over $300 million worldwide, John Carter wasn’t able to cover its costs due to it $263 million budget, plus a notoriously poor marketing campaign that cost almost $100 million. From this, the film was considered one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time. The monetary figures, however, don’t tell the full story. Retrospectively, many have pointed squarely to John Carter’s marketing strategy as the main reason it didn’t reach the audience base that studio execs thought it would.
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In an LA Times piece reflecting on John Carter’s flop, film critics highlighted how the campaign was uneven from the very start, with campaigners struggling to identify the film’s target audience. It also noted that many of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ original concepts for his Barsoom novels had already entered the public consciousness through sci-fi films like Star Wars, and the problem John Carter faced was that it failed to update these concepts for a modern-day audience.
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13 years on from the release of the film, audiences and critics have tried to reassess and improve its reputation. Ultimately, fans of the film - and the team who worked on it - agree that, even if John Carter didn’t live up to its high aspirations, it didn’t deserve to bomb the way it did.
Will there be a John Carter 2?
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The ‘reassessment’ has led to discussion about whether a John Carter 2 MIGHT just be possible if the right interest was there. At the time of writing, there are no concrete plans for the making of a John Carter 2. During production for the first film, Andrew Stanton envisioned John Carter as a trilogy, however, the financial bomb that was detonated by the first film quickly put that idea to bed.
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But…the conversation around a sequel to John Carter has never really died down. Stanton, and indeed some of the cast - including Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins - have always expressed interest in revisiting the story. Stanton himself had laid a lot of concrete plans for a sequel, even revealing the plot for the next two films during a meticulous long-read for The Wrap back in 2022.
In 2014, there was talk of the rights reverting to the Burroughs estate after Disney let them lapse, potentially opening the door for another studio to take a crack at it. Beyond this, fan campaigns and online petitions have cropped up every few years, as the film has gained something of a cult following for its ambition and visuals.
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However, none of this has swayed any major studio into taking a chance on John Carter 2.0. The consensus in Hollywood seems to be that this is a risky venture, given the original’s flop. On top of this - and perhaps more importantly - there are fears that the disastrously marketing campaign of the first film will be repeated on the second time round, with similar struggles when it comes to the essential question of how to market a century-old story to modern audiences who might (erroneously) see it as derivative of franchises like Star Wars, which it actually inspired.
So, is John Carter 2 completely out of the equation?
Well…never say never. In an era where big streaming platforms like Amazon, Disney+, and Netflix often dredge up older series and reboot them for modern audiences, it’s not completely out of the question that John Carter might get looked at again. But without a major announcement or shift in industry interest, we can safely say that John Carter 2 will remain in limbo for the time being.
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