Hey, best-selling author and comic book geek Michael Chabon! Are you writing John Carter of Mars?
“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 Burroughs’s Barsoom. So this is pretty much a dream come true for me.”
Edgar Rice Burroughsbegan publishing the serialized adventures of John Carter, a Civil War soldier who through the quirks of astral projection finds himself on Mars, way back in 1912. The natives of the Red Planet call it “Barsoom.” Its population handily consists of blood-thirsty emperors and scantily-clad princesses. With Tarzan, Carter stands as the pulp meister‘s most enduring character.
While there are dozens of Tarzan movies, John Carter has never had the privilege of appearing on the screen. The film project has been in the works for years–Burroughs was first involved in a Rotoscoped version in 1931 that MGM declined to release. At one point, Robert Rodriguez and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow helmer Kerry Conran were attached to direct. Carter will be Andrew Stanton‘s first post-WALL-E project, and it’ll be interesting to see how the Pixar whiz handles an explicitly adult adventure. Stanton said the film will be PG-13.
The author of the acclaimed The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay has been earning some Hollywood chump change doing script doctoring, although Spider-Man 2 was one patient he couldn’t resuscitate. Reviewing “The Martian Agent,” which went from script to short story, Deborah Friedell wrote it was “silly, campy … enough to send readers back into the cold but reliable arms of The New Yorker.”
Total Filmreminds us that Chabon has other movie projects on the go. Stephen Daldry has been attached to Kavalier and Clay, while the Coen Brothers are set to direct The Yiddish Policemen’s Unionafter they’ve finished True Grit.
Are Chabon and Stanton the right men for the job? Which actor would you like to see as a bare-chested Virginian? Which actress would you like to see in a thong and green skin-paint? Leave a comment.
Tags: Andrew Stanton, Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter of Mars, Mark Andrews, Michael Chabon, Spider-Man 2, Stephen Daldry, Tarzan, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Coen Brothers, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, True Grit
April 25, 2009 at 8:01 am |
[…] 25th, 2009 // 8:57AM GMT — Just rememered that I really wanted to use this post to remember that John Carter of Mars, Andrew Stanton’s next project after Wall-E. I’m still “highly anticipating” this one. Those lsat […]