john carter of mars Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Having put the final touches on a brilliant cast, John Carter of Mars is getting underway at Disney. Edgar Rice Burroughs' epic series has seen a lot of stops and starts over the years, and it's still unbelievable that it's actually happening. But at this point, it's still shrouded in pre-production mystery, but Ain't It Cool News wheeled a little information out of Willem Dafoe about his role as Tars Tarkas, a great Martian warrior and eventual ally of Carter. (Do AICN's Capone a favor and read the whole interview when you're done here. It's excellent.)

Dafoe revealed to Capone that he doesn't know much more than you or I might, but his enthusiasm for Tarkas and for Andrew Stanton is contagious. "I've seen a lot of the designs and things, and I've just started to do prep work now. I'm doing a play in New York, so I'm kind of preoccupied by that, but I'm starting doing scans and things like that, but it's going to be a real full-on ... Well, I'm nine feet tall with four arms, but, just from the scheduling, I'm going to do the stuff ... They'll use my face, but they'll enhance it in a way --both after and before-- in a way that I may not be recognizable. But, I'm good with that. It's particularly cool, because he's a creature, but he's got this huge range of character. And, he does cool things in the movies." As John Carter will be coming on the heels of all James Cameron, Robert Zemeckis, and Disney's Davy Jones' "game changing" technology, the possibilities of what this could look like are pretty enticing.

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I was slightly disappointed with the initial casting of John Carter of Mars, but as Andrew Stanton keeps bringing the wonderful with every addition to the roster, I just have to trust him when it comes to his choice of Taylor Kitsch. But Stanton is sending more impressive talent to Mars, as according to The Hollywood Reporter, James Purefoy, Thomas Haden Church, and Mark Strong have joined the cast.

Purefoy will be playing Kantos Kan, the captain of the Xavarian, the grand flagship of Helium. Carter meets him in the prisons of Warhoon, and they're forced to battle in a gladitorial match. They become allies as only former gladiators can, and Kan assists him on his quest to save Mars / Barsoom. I found it difficult to picture the secondary characters in Princess of Mars, so I feel lame in saying "Purefoy is perfect as Kan!" but he'll fit the part of a seasoned naval captain. He'll be quite dashing, even. (Actually, I think Purefoy would have made a good Carter.)

Church will be playing Tal Hajus, who THR calls "a vicious Thark warrior who is determined to become king." In the books, he's a Jabba the Hut type who lusts after Princess Dejah Thoris, and is happily ensconced as a leader, so this might be one of the first big changes you'll see in the story. It would probably make things a lot more interesting to have Church play him as a capable bastard than a slobby wreck.

Read more over at SciFi Squad

At Disney's D23 they kept the movie surprises coming for nearly two hours, announcing a slew of new information about their upcoming slate of films for the next couple of years, and they trotted out John Travolta, Robert Zemeckis, Jerry Bruckheimer, Nic Cage, Miley Cyrus, and ... Johnny Depp in full costume as Captain Jack Sparrow. Yes, we're not kidding, and boy do I hate the "no cameras in the arena" rule that Disney busted on us. Of all the things to miss a photo of.

So yes, Pirates 4 is coming out in Summer 2011. That's probably the biggest news. What else did they announce? Check it out below ...

• Disney's The Princess and The Frog will be screened at the Disney Studio in Burbank, which is being opened to the public for the first time ever, from November 25th through December 13th.
• The new Muppets movie will be called The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made. Interestingly, this is the same title as a concept for a Muppet film that Jim Henson, Jerry Juhl and Frank Oz had back in 1985. It was revived in 2000 by Frank Oz, but died in development hell. We're assuming this is the new Jason Segel Muppet project.
• Disney is remaking The Beatles' Yellow Submarine as a 3D film, complete with new motion capture and the original songs from the soundtrack, directed by Robert Zemeckis.
• Disney's Pirates 4 will be called Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and will be released in Summer 2011. Depp came out as Jack Sparrow, and asked if anyone had seen a talking frog. Well, stranger things have happened.
• We should also point out (thanks to commenter Dan) that On Stranger Tides is the name of a Pirate-related book by Tim Powers. Is Disney adapting the book for the fourth movie? Did they swipe the title? What's the connection there, because there definitely has to be a connection.
  

Some mid-week casting nibblets:

The wonderful Willem Dafoe is about to make a trip to Mars. The Hollywood Reporter posts that Dafoe has signed on to play Tars Tarkas in the Civil War/space project John Carter of Mars. Seeing Dafoe take a slight pause from his horror-filled schedule is nice, and it's even better that Tarkas is both a great warrior and compassionate man -- a gig that Dafoe should be able to tackle easily. But there is a twist -- Dafoe is once again going green for a gig. This is what Tarkas looks like.

And it's been a while since we got casting news for Rod Lurie's Straw Dogs remake, but now Variety reports that Kate Bosworth and Alexander Skarsgard are joining the roster. Bosworth will play James Marsden's wife, as they leave Hollywood for her Mississippi hometown. Skarsgard will play her old high school boyfriend and ex-football hero. One things for certain: this isn't the usual crop of names one would see on such an epically violent story.

Meanwhile, Christine Baranski will play Jennifer Aniston's mom in her Gerard Butler comedy Bounty Hunter, according to Variety. There's still no word on just what kind of fugitive Aniston is, and why, but Baranski should make things interesting.

And finally, Patrick Dempsey is changing things up a bit with a new big-screen role. Variety reports that he'll star in Universal's adaptation of The Art of Racing in the Rain. Yes, it's a racing movie, but not exactly a racing movie. See, it's fueled by memories from "Enzo, a family dog with a near-human soul and philosopher's mind, who evaluates his life through the lessons learned by his human owner, the race-car driver Denny Swift." No romance and fairy tale quirk this time around, just a little Marley magic and a bit of Dempsey's own race car driving ways.

If it wasn't for Andrew Stanton at the helm of John Carter of Mars, I think the interest might completely bottom out with its casting. ComingSoon had the scoop via Twitter that Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins were set to star, and the rumor became reality in The Hollywood Reporter.

Kitsch will be playing the titular Carter, a Civil War veteran who is transported (via astral projection, leaving his lifeless body behind) to Mars. There he meets the lovely Martian princess Dejah Thoris, wins her hand, rediscovers his own humanity, and rescues Mars. The film is tipped to begin filming in 2010, and they've been scouting Utah for Martian locations.

When Stanton discussed the project earlier this year, he mentioned they wanted an unknown despite the fact Hugh Jackman was tipped as a fan favorite. How odd then that they've managed to recast 2/4 of Jackman's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. THR notes that Jon Hamm and Josh Duhamel also tested for the part, and while I've got nothing against Kitsch (I'm not going to hold Gambit against him), I really wish they had chosen Hamm. An ex-Confederate needs a bit of age and weariness to him instead of being a fresh faced up and comer ... but then again, a lot of Civil War soldiers were ridiculously young when they enlisted, so perhaps Kitsch can play it as disillusioned and old-before-his-time. One can hope ...

John Carter of Mars news always seems to fly under the radar, and this delightful little blurb was no exception. Hidden in a Deadline Hollywood Daily post about Michael Chabon switching agencies was far more interesting little footnote that he was now writing the script for Andrew Stanton's Mars.

The Amazing Website of Kavalier & Clay (a very dedicated Chabon fansite) decided to just do the obvious and ask the man himself. Surprise! It's true: "I've been hired to do some revisions to an already strong script by Andrew Stanton and Mark Andrews. I wrote my original screenplay The Martian Agent back in 1995 because I wished I could do [Edgar Rice] Burroughs's Barsoom. So this is pretty much a dream come true for me."

Back in January, Stanton was pretty candid about how difficult the story was to adapt, but insisted they were past the writing stage, and into pre-production and casting. Clearly they've backtracked a little, but can anyone really be worried that they've stopped work to bring on Michael Chabon? This is a win-win situation all around, particularly since Chabon still hasn't managed to see any more of his work on the big screen. If John Carter spawns a Kavalier and Clay film, how happy the world will be!

I nearly crammed this into a Geek Daily before deciding the quotes were just too long, and that some John Carter fans might read "Nick Fury" in the title of that and skip right over. We can't have that!

MTV caught up exclusively with Pixar's Andrew Stanton, who confirmed the film is real. "We're full bore on it right now. We're over the hump of the writing phase, and we're certainly far from rewrites." In fact, they're well into pre-production, and even looking at casting the hero. "I know everybody wanted Hugh Jackman forever. But he's only getting older and more exposed now, so it's a tough call. I'm your typical filmmaker, I want to find the next best unknown."

Penning a script out of an episodic story has been one of the major pitfalls of all movie attempts, but is a problem Stanton thinks he cracked. "It almost had an absence of a story for a feature film because it was very episodic. In its day it was a comic book. I mean, this book was written in 1912. It was the comic book you got in the time before there was such thing as comic books. So, it was really just about the next fight, the next adventure, the next romance. The key was putting a story into it and creating characters that had to grow and real basic stuff that we all know a movie needs."

It is a long way from an official green light, but here is a confirmation of sorts -- Andrew Stanton is writing John Carter of Mars. According to The Pixar Blog, Stanton confirmed it as his next project. However, no further details were forthcoming so we still don't know if it is live action, animation, or some computerized combination. However, he did mention in the same press conference that he has "caught the bug" for live-action filmmaking.

Nor do we know if Stanton intends on adapting the first book, Princess of Mars, or if it will be some combination of many. As rumors have pegged John Carter as the franchise to eventually replace Narnia, I will venture a guess to say he's working on Princess. Plus it has a sexy title.

Now, I seem to be the only geek online who has not read Edgar Rice Burroughs' sci-fi extravaganza, so forgive my uneducated opinion -- but, from what I know of the series (thanks, Wikipedia), I genuinely hope it is live action. The world needs a glorious sci-fi opera, in all its pulpy glory, and it would be an interesting foray for Pixar. Plus, an animated John Carter just strikes me as a foray into the Uncanny Valley.

As Pixar and Stanton can do no wrong by me, I'm officially intrigued. I hope fans of the books chime in as to whether it ought to be live action or CG. And if your pick is live action, I'd love to know who you want to see as the dark-haired, gray-eyed immortal. I want to know who to picture when I (eventually) read the books.

Remember that rumor that we reported on several weeks ago -- the one from Jim Hill that said Disney was considering abandoning The Chronicles of Narnia franchise for John Carter of Mars? The response was, well, harsh. No one felt it could possibly be true.

Well, it might be. FirstShowing.net was at the Prince Caspian panel at New York ComicCon, where producer Mark Johnson confirmed that Disney was planning to end the series as a trilogy with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. There are "no plans" at present to film the remaining books -- although there is the possibility that if Caspian and Dawn Treader do well, Disney will revive it. As of now, there's no confirmation that Disney plans to replace Narnia with John Carter -- but you have to imagine they'll certainly explore all options.

The news doesn't surprise me at all. I think Disney's enthusiasm for the beloved fantasy franchise was admirable, but not entirely well thought out. I stand by my original opinion that the books become darker, stranger and nigh unfilmable from this point on. I think A Horse and His Boy would make a spectacular standalone film, though, and an ideal place to revisit the series if Disney ever revived it. Well, at least I'm getting Dawn Treader. I can live just fine without ever revisiting The Last Battle, but give me Narnian adventure on the high seas!

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian comes to theatres May 16th, 2008.

You know, for the Happiest Place on Earth, Disney can be full of drama.

Jim Hill reports that Disney is growing very concerned about their Narnia franchise, and much hinges on Prince Caspian. If it doesn't do well, the studio may be pulling the plug on the rest of the series. It is likely they will still continue with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, as it is already in pre-production. (That news cancels out my howl of disappointment. That's my favorite!) There's no solid reason as to why, although Disney is undoubtedly picking up on the lack of buzz Caspian is producing. I don't really know anyone who loved The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; the response seemed to be an underwhelming "It was all right."

It's possible Disney also didn't know quite what it was getting in for -- the books following Dawn Treader are a long way from talking mice. The Silver Chair is downright terrifying, The Horse and His Boy skips back to when the Pevensie children were adult Narnia rulers -- which could probably be explained via a title card, but it would stick out terribly. The Magician's Nephew is a Narnia creation myth, and The Last Battle. . .well, let's not even go there. That will have the children sobbing in the aisles. Not exactly ideal for merchandising.

Instead, Disney seems to be turning their attention to another live action franchise -- John Carter of Mars. From the sound of it, this may even be beating Brad Bird's 1906 to the title of First Pixar Live Action. It is all speculation, but Hill has put together an impressive what-could-be timeline that John Carter fans should check out. There are certainly telling rumors (and domain names) afoot. There is definitely a sense of urgency over at Disney, and it is going to be very interesting to see how it all pans out.

UPDATE: According to a Disney rep, this report is "entirely false." No other information was revealed, though one would assume the Narnia franchise is just fine and continuing along as scheduled.

[via IESB.net]