Writing Wild with Verna McKinnon

Okay I need to address an issue that is vexing me.  First of all, John Carter (which should have been John Carter of Mars or similar) is no flop.  The ridiculous expectations of studios to reap back all of their production costs in 2 weeks is illogical and deluded.  Also they did not know how to promote the movie.  I know the studio's base is suppose to be fantasy based studio-but I personally think they do not understand anything beyond kid cartoons and fluff.  John Carter was based on Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom series, the first of which was written a hundred years ago-literally.  No one knows or understands today that John Carter comes from that.  Disney needed to promote that and use that as part of the ad runs.  Other than meager clips you got nothing what the movie was about.  It is a great movie.  Disney (I believe) hates real science fiction and fantasy literature-look what they did to the Black Cauldron years ago? ...

My editor Joe Dickerson (sitting) showing off and hopefully selling copies of my book @ Fantascicon in Dalton, Georgia recently.    Looks like it was a fun convention.  I hope he sold lots of copies.  Hi Joe!

Okay, I do plan on seeing John Carter, which should have been titled "John Carter of Mars," or "Princess of Mars."  I heard via rumor that Disney did a poll and said that women would not see a movie called John Carter of Mars. Disney- get a grip.    In fact, all movie and TV studios, stop over doing the stupid focus groups!  They are lame.  Those focus groups would not have liked Star Wars or Star Trek either-and look at the money makers those were?  I am miffed that this was not John Carter of Mars, or any of the possible cool titles that Edgar Rice Burroughs created.  Yes, this is something from the wonderful age of classic science fiction/fantasy pulp era where imagination ruled, that same age that spawned HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard.  A friend recently commented that John Carter sounded too much like John Connor (from Terminator) until I pointed out these stories were much older (first of which was written in 1912 und...