Even if JOHN CARTER makes money later on, it's been tagged as box-office bomb.

http://tomshone.blogspot.com/2012/03/when-bombs-dont-explode.html

Tom Shone's article is worth reading, but the "bomb" tag will stay with Disney's JOHN CARTER.

Since The Walt Disney Company decided awhile back to only make blockbusters (with Touchstone now merely a distributor for DreamWorks live-action product), they put themselves in a vulnerable position when they decided to pump at least $250 million into a film based on a series of novels not widely known to today's audience.

Wondering if the same kind of nail-biting is going on in Burbank over the currently-filming THE LONE RANGER (it's been over thirty years since the last attempt at reviving the old Western TV series as a feature film).  Perhaps not, if current Disney studio head Rich Ross is secure in his belief that the casting of Johnny Depp as Tonto guarantees a big box-office take.