It is generally believed that inadequate marketing of the film was the main factor responsible for its commercial failure. Director Andrew Stanton had been given full creative control over the movie as well as its marketing campaign, but according to insiders, he greatly overestimated the universal appeal and popularity of the character John Carter with a contemporary audience. Due to Stanton's inexperience with life action movies and slow pace of filming, there were simply no big special effects shots available when it was time to create the first teaser trailer. Stanton purposely left out references to his earlier work at Pixar (not wanting people to think that it was a children's film) and to the works of author Edgar Rice Burroughs from the teaser. As a big fan of the book series, he wanted to stay as true to the source material as possible; to avoid marketing the film as purely an action blockbuster, he focused on its origin story rather than the action and special effects, much against the wishes of studio executives. When the teaser left audiences unimpressed, the studio was set to create a second trailer that would focus on both the action and the story, in order to appeal to a large audience. However, due to Stanton using his veto on many shots, the resulting trailer contained mostly action and special effects shot that were felt to be too reminiscent of the Star Wars saga. As the awareness of the movie among prospective audiences was shown to increase prior to its release, their interest declined, resulting in a disappointing 30 million gross in the first weekend. With altered trailers, the film ultimately fared much better overseas, and enjoyed a major success in Russia.

Film

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