LeFou was a ‘toady’ to the male lead character. Nothing homosexual about him in the story. The director admits he changed the story to make the story as a metaphor to AIDS and push the gay agenda.
Disney lost $200M on John Carter, other films have bombed as well because they misread the audience. Here it goes again.
I have the orginial animated film on DVD. I’m very familiar with it. I love the film. Which is why I’m very curious about how, when, why, and by whom the decision was made to make LeFou a gay guy.
Disney’s “John Carter” is a very interesting movie. Andrew Stanton, who wrote and directed “WALL-E” and “Finding Nemo” was the director. Coming off of the phenomenal box office success of those two movies, Disney gave him a lot of creative control, even over cutting trailers, even though his experience as a director was in animation and not live action.
There’s a good book called “John Carter and the Gods of Hollywood” by Michael D. Sellers that really explores how the movie failed. Bad marketing, timing, high budget, proximity to other Disney blockbusters which didn’t do well (Lone Ranger), were all contributing factors.
Stanton wanted to direct a trilogy, which I would have liked to see as I’m a fan of Edgar Rice Burrows’ novels, but it may be some time before that ever happens again. Disney let rights revert back to the Burrows estate.