Disney dropped the “of Mars” because “Mars needs Moms” tanked. One of those weird pieces of Hollywood executive logic: clearly Mars Needs Mom didn’t tank because of moms, everybody loves moms, so it must be Mars’ fault. Which then of course means taking all the Mars out of the ads, so you get a shirtless guy jumping far, and only real nerds have any interest in going to see it, and there just aren’t that many of us.
I think I recall the director saying something like they didn’t go with ‘A Princess of Mars’ because boys don’t go see movies with princesses and girls don’t dig movies about other planets, so ‘John Carter of Mars’ was out too. Combined with other ‘Mars’ floppage and they lose one of the best titles ever...
Freegards