John Carter of Mars is a fantasy/adventure movie about an American Civil War veteran who finds his way out to Arizona, only to “die” one night. He subsequently wakes up on the distant planet Barsoom — which we know as Mars. Written in 1912 by Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Under the Moons of Mars” helped to launch both ERB’s career as a great writer and a whole new genre of science fiction and fantasy pulp action adventure heroes who took books, comic books, radio, movies, and television by storm.
Even today, almost 100 years later, we see the effects of Burroughs’ success in numerous television shows and movies that are based on space-faring action adventure heroes and swashbucklers. But the seminal hero in all this — John Carter himself — has somehow never made the transition from the printed page to film. And that is despite several attempts to make a John Carter of Mars movie going all the way back to the 1940s.
So imagine the mounting excitement of the faithful when they began hearing rumors in late 2008 that there might indeed be a “Princess of Mars” movie based on the John Carter books. When rumor became reality John Carter of Mars movie discussion popped up all over the Web. In fact, now there are so many articles about John Carter of Mars it’s hard to even find the most recent ones in a search engine.
The formula for the story is pretty basic: handsome man with high moral values meets beautiful, well-connected maiden in captivity. He frees her, wins her heart, and then has to fight off every villain and would-be suitor for the maiden’s hand that Mars can offer. And Mars offers many villains and would-be suitors. Word has it that Disney and Pixar, the studios collaborating on the movies, plan to make three of them. And then, who knows? Maybe a whole string of successful John Carter movies will follow. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a total of 10 and 1/4 John Carter stories.
The first Disney/Pixar “John Carter of Mars” movie is scheduled to premier in 2012.
