The first thing that Disney’s “John Carter” has to do–attract enough viewers to justify its $200 million dollar price tag–is what it probably will have the most trouble doing, which is to appeal to the greatest amount of individuals as possible.

This problem came into rather sharp focus when I was watching “The Dark Crystal” last night, which started me thinking of “John Carter.” ” The Dark Crystal,” which essentially is the Muppets with subtext, nonetheless convincingly evokes the feel of a fantasy world beyond the experience of most viewers, which is something that “John Carter” will have to do, and make a huge profit while doing so.

In other words, it has to be strange enough to gain the interest of the hard-core scifi/fantasy crowd, without alienating more “traditional” viewers.

And I have a perfect barometer: My mother.  She loves a good drama–it doesn’t hurt if there are some prominent African-Americans in the cast–but doesn’t tend to go for horror or scifi.

By way of example, she’s a big fan of “Matlock” and “Murder, She Wrote,” though she’s opening to new things, which is why I am trying to get her to watch an episode of “The Walking Dead,” because once you get beyond the zombies, there’s some really good drama going on.

“John Carter” is a remarkably expensive film, and the only way it’s going to be successful is to attract more than scifi fans; more than fans of the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

It’s going to need lots of those traditional viewers, like my mom, and and I am not sure that it has what it takes to get them.

By the way, I didn’t think too much of Taylor Kitsch as an actor, till I saw him in “The Bang Bang Club.”

He’s actually pretty good in it, though that’s not going to do much toward making “John Carter” profitable.