BREAKING MOVIE/TV NEWS

Monday, May 23, 2011

"John Carter" Explores Mars

Walt Disney Pictures have confirmed that the title of Oscar-winning director Andrew Stanton's upcoming live action 3D feature, based on author Edgar Rice Burrough's "A Princess Of Mars", will now be released as "John Carter", March 9, 2012.

"John Carter" is currently in post-production.

"...Academy Award-winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton brings 'John Carter', this captivating hero to the big screen in a stunning adventure epic set on the wounded planet of Mars, a world inhabited by warrior tribes and exotic desert beings.

"Based on the first of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom Series," the film chronicles the journey of Civil-War veteran John Carter, who finds himself battling a new and mysterious war amidst a host of strange Martian inhabitants..."

"I have been waiting my whole life to see the characters and worlds of 'John Carter of Mars' realized on the big screen," said Stanton.

"It is just a wonderful bonus to have anything to do with it".

The ensemble cast is led by Canadian actor Taylor Kitsch as 'John Carter', Lynn Collins as warrior princess 'Dejah Thoris' and Willem Dafoe as Martian 'Tars Tarkas'.

Cast also includes Thomas Haden Church, Polly Walker, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy and Bryan Cranston.

Creative team includes Oscar-nominated production designer Nathan Crowley, costume designer Mayes Rubeo, DP Daniel Mindel and video effects supervisor Peter Chiang.

The character of 'John Carter' debuted in "A Princess of Mars", written in 1911, then serialized as "Under the Moons of Mars", February to July 1912 in the pulp magazine "All-Story", before being published in book form, October 1917.

The character reappeared in subsequent volumes of the series, including "The Gods of Mars (1918), "The Warlord of Mars" (1919), "Swords of Mars" (1936) and "Llana of Gathol (1948).

Carter is also a major secondary character in the fourth volume, "Thuvia, Maid of Mars" (1920), and the ninth, "Synthetic Men of Mars" (1940).

According to Burroughs, Carter served as a captain in the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy. After the war, he struck it rich finding gold in Arizona.

But while hiding from Apaches in a cave, he seemingly dies, leaving his inanimate body behind, then mysteriously transported by astral projection to the planet Mars.

Re-embodied in a form identical to his earthly one, Carter is much stronger than the natives of Mars, because of the difference in gravity.

Click the images to enlarge...