"The A Team" theatrical poster Copyright © 2010 by 20th Century Fox. All Rights Reserved (source: Impawards.com)

“We kind of fell victim to a marketing misstep in that there wasn’t necessarily an understanding of what the show was,” The A-Team director Joe Carnahan told The Wall Street Journal. “We didn’t do an adequate enough job of telling people what the movie was, if you know what I mean.”

What he means is that the film’s expensive marketing campaign, especially the TV advertising theatrical trailers, created a cartoonish impression of a thoughtfully scripted action movie.

The A-Team film version of the successful TV show had all the ingredients for a summer hit (positive title recognition, stellar cast, big budget, slam-bang, pyrotechnic production), but fell far short of its projected profit model.

Box office was just $77 million domestic (remember when that much income was a successful studio annual gross?).

“If I had a nickel for every time someone, especially women, came up to me and said they were dragged to the film but ended up liking it,” Carnahan said. “That’s how you know you blew it. And we blew it.”

Carnahan still believes that the home video sales will find his missing audience and may even impel a sequel.