over $100 million to that end. Sealey called the change in marketing leadership "[t]he worst thing that can happen to a movie" as it adversely affects the morale of the cast and crew, who often have to promote the film personally in the media. Disney moved the film's release up to early March 2012 from June, giving it just two box office weekends before Lionsgate's The Hunger Games, widely expected to do very well and compete for the same audience, came out. As that date approached, the usual aspects of Disney's marketing pushes for big-budget tentpole films were noticeably absent. There were no large merchandise displays in the company's online and retail stores, nor at big-box stores like Target. Nor were there prominently placed ads in the company's theme parks, or coverage on Disney-owned media such as the ABC broadcast network or The Disney Channel. "It needs to feel like an event, and right now it doesn't feel like an event," an unnamed marketing expert told The Hollywood Reporter. Instead, the company tried some alternative marketing approaches. Stanton gave a TED talk on storytelling, that had a short scene from John Carter as an example of one of his points. While that was seen as effective, some other promotions, such as an "Are You The Real John Carter?" contest, in which men who could prove that was their real name were encouraged to enter a contest where winners would be invited to a special fan screening, were not. As the premiere date neared, some of the filmmakers were unaware of the negative press coverage already attached to the movie. Mindel and Stanton admitted later that they were somewhat oblivious due to largely being in contact only with those whom they had been working with in post-production. Collins said those who worked for her and followed media coverage kept that information from her. Dafoe, on the other hand, was aware that the media were lowering the public and the industry's expectations for the film: "[M]y recollection was that even before it was released, there were grumblings about it ... everything from the name change to regime change to poor publicity. But I remember before the movie was even seen, people were counting it out." Poor tracking Tracking data, the results of long-term surveys of likely filmgoers to judge their interest in seeing an upcoming film upon its release, with a prediction