A trilogy-killing debacle that became a cult classic after losing $200 million finds a savior on streaming

It’s been 10 whole years since Andrew Stanton’s John Carter secured the unwanted reputation of becoming one of the most colossal financial failures in the history of cinema, but the ambitious sci-fi epic is arguably more popular than ever before.

Of course, it would have been nice had the voluminous number of supporters turned up and paid for a ticket when the intergalactic epic was playing in theaters, otherwise the $264 million blockbuster wouldn’t have ended up $200 million in the red to kill any chance of seeing Princess of Mars and Warlord of Mars being brought to the big screen.

A reputation as a cult classic will have to do, then, something for which star Taylor Kitsch remains enormously appreciative. John Carter definitely deserved better than it got, but at least the catastrophic flop has continued to bring in new fans on streaming. As per FlixPatrol, the one-and-done cosmic caper has made a surprise return to prominence on the Google Play Movies most-watched list, even though it’s readily available on Disney Plus, too.

It’s a crying shame that we’ve gotten six Transformers flicks (with another three on the way) that largely turned out to be terrible across the board, and yet John Carter couldn’t even come close to competing with the Autobots and Decepticons in terms of cold, hard, cash.

Maybe one day we’ll get a reboot that tells the entire story from start to finish, but until that day does or doesn’t come, we’ll have to make to with the sprawling standalone story that’s spent a decade worming its way into hearts and minds.