Although we’re only two months into the year, one filmmaker is already facing one of the most difficult challenges of his career as Pixar Animation pioneer Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALLE) attempts to bring Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “John Carter of Mars” sci-fi adventure series to the big screen in Disney’s John Carter, out March 9.
You’ve probably already heard some of the rumors about how much the movie cost, but there’s no one better to talk to about the genesis and evolution of the project than Stanton himself, and as we learned, most of the cast got involved merely because Stanton was directing it.
The director’s first step was to cast Taylor Kitsch, a relatively unknown actor best known for his stint on NBC’s show “Friday Night Lights” (and playing Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine) as John Carter, a former Confederate soldier from Virginia who is transported to a mysterious place called “Barsoom” by its inhabitants. There, he encounters Dejah Thoris, the Princess of (what he learns to be) Mars, played by Lynn Collins, a well-regarded actress who also appeared in that Wolverine prequel, oddly enough. She has been caught in the middle of a brutal battle between the different races of Barsoom, all vying for the planet’s most valuable resources, her people the Heliums fighting with the warlike Zodangans, led by Sab Than (Dominic West), who will do whatever they can to dominate. Meanwhile, the planet’s most alien race, the nine-foot, four-armed green Tharks fight back with their primitive weaponry to keep their planet alive.
A couple of weeks ago, ComingSoon.net traveled to the Boulders Resort in the beautiful desert environment of Carefree, Arizona, which best captured the Martian landscape, and we had a few chances to speak with Stanton about his first attempt at directing a live action movie.
First, we went up to the top of a hill for a rather brief video interview in which we talked to Stanton about:
* What made him want to tackle a book adaptation after two successful original Pixar movies
* Whether a project needs a good amount of time to develop before making it
* Whether part of the joy of doing an adaptation is to get people to read the book
* The casting of Taylor and Lynn as John Carter and Dejah Thoris
* Doing previs animation for the action scenes and whether it limited what they could do
