An underrated fantasy that should have been the intergalactic ‘Indiana Jones’ lost $200 million instead

It’s ironic that the blockbuster adaptation of one of the most iconic and influential fantasy stories that’s ever been written ended up cratering at the box office and being labeled as derivative, because the landscape of cinema as we know it would look a whole lot different if it wasn’t for the source material behind John Carter.

To give you an indication of just how far-reaching Edgar Rice Burroughs’ seminal sci-fi tale proved to be, everything and everyone from the later works of H. P. Lovecraft to James Cameron’s Avatar franchise via George Lucas and Star Wars owe at least a small debt of gratitude to the Martian adventure, something that proved to be just one of the many undoings that killed Andrew Stanton’s epic.

Those unfamiliar with A Princess of Mars blasted John Carter for looking so unoriginal and uninspiring, blissfully unaware that it was the one that set the blueprint to begin with, while the bland and generic title didn’t do a great job of selling it to the masses. In the end, it wound up as one of the biggest bombs of all-time after plunging Disney $200 million into the red, but at least we can sleep easy knowing it’s become a certified cult classic.

In fact, the love for John Carter grows stronger by the day, with a retrospective Reddit thread touting it as having the potential to be an intergalactic spin on the Indiana Jones series. It’s easy to see why given the old school influences, sweeping backdrops, and sense of derring-do that defined the underrated opener, but unless somebody else swoops in to pick up the rights and mount a reboot, the spectacular intergalactic cult favorite will continue to live on only as a massive missed opportunity.