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Haden Church Also Joining John Carter of Mars?

Source:ReelTalk, ComingSoon.net

June 13, 2009

News about the quickly-moving Disney/Pixar live action take on Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars directed by Andrew (WALL•E) Stanton is coming in fast and furious. Just a day after the announcement of Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins leading the cast, we've learned that Thomas Haden Church may also be joining the cast in an undisclosed role.

Talking to Church about his role in the new Eddie Murphy movie Imagine That on his syndicated review show ReelTalk, veteran critic Jeffrey Lyons asked Church about his decision whether to do comedies or dramas, and sure enough, one of the titles Church threw out was... you guessed it... John Carter of Mars!

"I'm probably going to do a huge science fiction drama at Disney called 'John Carter of Mars' and that's a very dramatic role," Church told Lyons in response, although he didn't say anything about what role he might play or whether it's the villain of the piece. Church has become quite proficient in the antagonist role, not only from the new Murphy movie but more famously, for playing Sandman in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3.

You can watch the full video interview below and hear him mention the project at roughly the 2:30 mark.

COMMENTS (18)

Posted by:

elessar

June 13, 2009

As for live action vs animation, I believe Stanton has said it will be live action.

Posted by:

Orpheus

June 13, 2009

"Pixar can't make PG-13/R due to their current Disney deal."

Not sure where you got that from but that isn't true at all. There is nothing in the agreement that states what rating Pixar films must be.

Posted by:

louie

June 13, 2009

I Believe along with Avatar this movie can take sci-fi films in a whole new direction. The way Star Wars and E.T did in the 70's and 80's.

Posted by:

Bob2

June 13, 2009

Someone who read Mars books Please respond to this.

I've read books 1-3.
A Princess of Mars
The Gods of Mars
Warlord of Mars

Those 3 books are kind of like a Trilogy.
I heard that books 4 - 11 are individual stories. Is this true.

I hope this is a 3 part movie that deals with books 1-3.

Posted by:

bigj

June 13, 2009

4 and 5 are about his son and daughter. Actually I enjoyed 5 better than most of 1-3, btu yes It can be broken up into a trilogy, and then independent stories set in the same world. Carter only makes cameos in those books.

Posted by:

wolf

June 13, 2009

Actually, book 4 is about his son and daughter in law to be (Thuvia, Maid of Mars). 5 is Chessmen of Mars, with a warrior of Helium up against a race of symbiotic creatures (body and head two separate organisms). 6 is Mastermind of Mars (another earthman, Ulysses Paxton, and a mad scientist who switches brains). 7 is a Fighting Man of Mars, another Red Martian hero (my favorite of the series). 8 is Swords of Mars, with John Carter as the protagonist again, on the moons of Mars. 9 is Synthetic Men of Mars...guess. I don't recall 10 right now, and Llana of Gathol is 11. The last two or three got steadily worse IMO, but you could be talking an eight or nine movie series with decent plus scripts... (if some of my memory is a little faulty, sorry, it has been a long time since I read them, and only just started re-reading the series last week). I think I am mostly accurate, enough to give an idea of what is in the series as a whole.

Posted by:

Little Lebowski

June 14, 2009

It's live action. There was just an article TWO DAYS AGO that talked about them filming in Utah from November to June.

And this would probably have to be a Fall 2012 film, since Pixar has two movies in 2011 already, and one in summer '12.

Posted by:

elessar

June 14, 2009

If this comes out in 2012, as I and Little Lebowski think, it will have been exactly 100 years since Burroughs first wrote the John Carter of Mars series.

BTW, Little Lebowski, this isn't being done by Pixar itself, although a lot of Pixar people are working on it, but by mainline Disney. Still, I doubt Pixar will want it competing with either of their 2011 films.