Disney movie studio boss Rich Ross stepped down on Friday, taking the fall for at least a couple of over-budgeted bombs as Hollywood shies away from taking risks on big blockbusters. His resignation comes after two years in a row of nasty March surprises, ironically both having to do with the Red Planet. Last year it was "Mars Needs Moms," a creepy animated movie that lost $70 million. This year, it was "John Carter," a sci-fi action movie set on Mars that resulted in a $200 million loss.Brings to mind an earlier pair of Mars duds: Red Planet (2000) and Mission to Mars (2000). That begs the question: why do studios keep backing bad Mars projects? Or, is there something about the red planet that inspires really bad movie projects? More importantly, is there a Mars curse for movie studios?
(So you can decide for yourselves, here's a handy list of Mars-related films (and yes, most of them are pretty terrible).)
