John Carter Tanks On Friday: Opens at Less Than 10 Million

[[wysiwyg_imageupload:848:]]There was an initial report that John Carter didn’t do all that well for its midnight debut, coming in at only $500,000.

And that was the reason Disney green lit The Avengers trailer to be paired with further screenings of John Carter this weekend.

Now we learn that Carter came in at under $10 million for Friday ($9.82 mil), which wasn’t even close to Battle: Los Angeles that had a $13.4 million opening the same time last year.

And it looks as if John Carter will come in at under $30 million for the weekend, which at a cost of around $250 million, is a terrible number. To boot, this weekend looks to be the first of 2012 that sees a decline in sales compared to the previous year.

John Carter barley managed to beat out the Dr. Seuss flick, Lorax, that debuted last week and fell 45 percent this week with $9.6 million.

A comparable movie would be Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time, which opened at around $30 million with a $200 million budget in May of 2010.

I haven’t seen the movie, but from the few reports that have come my way, it generally has received positive reviews. “$250 million” positive? Not sure about that, but since the movie is not getting great results, is the marketing just to blame, as it seems audiences haven’t been able to connect with the movie? Or something else? Maybe the names attached weren’t “big” enough? 

Have you seen it? Does John Carter warrant this less than stellar debut?

(numbers via BoxOfficeMojo)