The Walt Disney Co. expects to lose over $200 million for the month of March after John Carter turned out to be a colossal flop.

Disney said “John Carter” has brought in about $184 million in ticket sales worldwide so far. But ticket sales are split roughly in half with theater owners. The movie’s production budget is estimated to be about $250 million with about $100 million more spent on marketing.

John Carter (also John Carter of Mars) is a 2012 American epic science fiction action film that tells the first interplanetary adventure of John Carter, the heroic protagonist of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 11-volume Barsoom series of novels (1912–43). The film is the live-action debut of director/writer Andrew Stanton; his previous work includes the Pixar animated films Finding Nemo (2003) and WALL-E (2008). Co-written by Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon, it is produced by Jim Morris, Colin Wilson, and Lindsey Collins, and scored by Michael Giacchino.

The film is packed with adventure, aliens, indians, gold mining, and hot Xena chicks, but this failed to attract a large enough audience. The movie’s failure could be due to nebulous trailers and its inherently complex plot. The scope of the film is not an easy one to spoon feed to the average audience.

The movie establishes that Mars is a dying planet inhabited by warring civilizations and great airships. The film is set in 1881 and centers around Edgar “Ned” Rice Burroughs and his deceased uncle and adventurer, John Carter. Edgar learns more about his uncle after being handed his journal. The real story takes shape as Carter’s adventures unfold.

People commented on YouTube that the film:

“Looks like Star Wars, Gladiator, Sherlock Holmes and Prince of Persia all in one.”

“I liked the movie for its visuals and the choice of actors. but other than that, i personally think it was a disaster-they changed almost ALL of the plot in comparison to the novel. Where in the book everything made sense, and followed some logic, in the movie it was the opposite. i felt that a lot of scenes were not very natural and in some way forced. The biggest failure was in capturing, or rather lack of it, the emotional change in the characters and thus Barsoom, influenced by John Carter.”

“The reason why this movie is a cliche, is bec the book the princess of mars was written more than 100 yrs ago and all the other extraterrestrial movies are based on these books….Movie was great Thank you for bringing Jon Carter alive…the inspiration to superman. Star wars, avatar etc etc.”

“This movie is going to flop big time. Boring as hell. It could go down as one of the biggest movie disasters in history – route that many insiders thought avatar would go down. The difference between avatar and this movie is that James Cameron captured a sense of wonderment with his film and the storyline was emotionally driven with very little political nonsense. This movie leaves you bored and caring little for the main characters.”

John Carter received 51% on Rotten Tomatoes.com’s Tomatoemeter while 71% of audiences rated it positively. The main reviewer for the film commented on Rotten Tomatoes that, “While John Carter looks terrific and delivers its share of pulpy thrills, it also suffers from uneven pacing and occasionally incomprehensible plotting and characterization.”