“John Carter of Mars,” the film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ 1912 novel “A Princess of Mars” (which, you know, sounds too girlie) has had a long-ass production history. Most recently the film was set up at Paramount, spearheaded by Harry Knowles, of all people, with Jon Favreau and Robert Rodriguez and the dude that did “Sky Captain” in the director’s chair at different points.
The project is now back at Disney, who briefly owned the rights in the 1980’s, under the supervision of “Die Hard” director John McTiernan with a script by future “Pirates” trilogy scribes Ted Elliot and Terry Russo. During this first Disney iteration, Tom Cruise was talked about as taking the role of the heroic John Carter, a Civil War soldier transported to the red planet.
Well, things have changed significantly.
The new version of “John Carter” is now being helmed by Pixar’s Andrew Stanton, the director “Finding Nemo” and last year’s beloved sci-fi epic “WALL·E,” with a script by Stanton, Pixar story artist Mark Andrews, and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and huge sci-fi geek Michael Chabon. It’s unclear if it’s a Pixar movie or a Disney movie or what, but is said to liberally combine live action and animation.
And, apparently, it’s extremely close to production. According to a report in the Salt Late Tribune via Ain’t It Cool News, production is slated to begin this fall in Utah and continue through July 2010. They’ll film in Lake Powell (setting of the original “Planet of the Apes”) and Moab (site of the underrated vampire western “Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat” starring David Carradine R.I.P.), among other locales. Still, the question begs to be answered – who is really going to be able to stomach that much time in Utah?
This is fairly big news, because no one knew that this was so far along. Chabon was just hired back in April to work on the project, and there’s been very little talk of where the film fits in to the Disney/Pixar film schedule of the next few years. If anybody can bring this troubled production to history, we’re very happy it’s under the talented supervision of Pixar. [SLTRIB/AICN] – Drew Taylor
Update: Lynn Collins, last seen as Silverfox in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” has joined the cast
as has Taylor Kitsch (Gambit in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”) who is evidently the lead [ed. Dunno dude, pretty generic casting here, this just fell off my radar hard]