Okay, so John Carter came and bombed already. So many people predicted the flop that it practically became a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is rather unfortunate for genre fans.
The next big box office cliffhanger? Battleship, which hits theaters May 18.
Now we at TGhave written quite a bit about Battleship already, especially the fact that a lot of genre fans are resentful towards Universal for making a movie out of a boardgame, while insisting on making more crapola Fast and the Furious films without shooting anything remotely risky.
And if you’ve been following our Battleship coverage, you’ll also know that director Peter Berg’s standing strong against the criticism.
Universal put on a big display of Battleship at WonderCon 2012, where they even showed us the aliens up close and personal. Berg told the audience he was supposedly inspired by Steven Hawking while making Battleship. Hawking apparently claimed that the military was sending out radio signals to certain planets to see if they have life, and the initial idea spiraled from there.
Berg also said he got a warning from Kevin Costner, who starred in the big budget disaster Waterworld, which had even worse box office pronouncements of doom than John Carter.
He tried to tell Berg what went right and wrong on Waterworld, and even shooting half a movie on water, like Jaws, is always difficult business.
Whether Battleship makes Jaws money, Waterworld money, or John Carter money, well, we’ll find out soon enough.
Battleship, which stars Liam Neeson, Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgard, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna, Josh Pence, Jesse Plemons and Peter MacNicol, opens on May 18, 2012.
