2012 marks the 30th Anniversary of Blade Runner, but it also brought the long-awaited release of John Carter. While the two are very different movies, they also share some striking similarities for two science fiction movies released thirty years apart. Could John Carter one day be looked back as a classic like Blade Runner is today? Here are five similarities that say it may…

Both Were Hated by Critics

These days, Blade Runner is considered a science fiction classic and one of the great movies. But when it was released, critics panned it for its pacing and focus on effects that still look great even today. Time will tell on how John Carter will be seen, but critics reactions to the movie were similar to those of Blade Runner and in some cases worse as people were waiting to give the movie a bad review even before they saw it.

Both Bombed in the Box Office

Blade Runner’s opening weekend was a dismal $6 million, thanks in part to going up against E.T., Star Trek II, and The Thing that great summer of ’82. It’s been hard to ignore the news of how “poorly” John Carter has done in US theaters, with it only bringing in just over $68 million. It did do better overseas, and even set some new records in some countries such as Russia.

Both Were Loved by SciFi Fans

Despite the critics panning both Blade Runner and John Carter, both are nearly universally praised by people who actually watch them. Sure both have those who hate them, some don’t like the SciFi Noir of Blade Runner and others can’t stand the epic SciFi Opera of John Carter, but just as Blade Runner grew on word of mouth and became a classic; the same is likely to be true of John Carter.

Both Were Their Director’s Third Feature

While he had directed TV prior to films, Ridley Scott’s filmography began with The Duelists, then Alien, and then Blade Runner. Andrew Stanton was a Pixar director who did Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and then John Carter. Both were pretty impressive for only the third big screen outing for both directors.

1982-2012

The summer of ’82 that birthed Blade Runner is considered by geeks to be an absolutely classic summer for genre movies. The Thing, E.T., Star Trek II, Rocky III, Tron, First Blood, Conan, Beastmaster, and many other awesome movies all debuted that year alongside Blade Runner. 2012 is beginning to look like a repeat of that with The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man, Prometheus, and The Hobbit at the end of the year. And John Carter kicked it all off just a couple of months ago.