Almost a week ago, and without any fanfare, Nikki Finke listed John Carter of Mars as one of Michael Chabon’s screenwriting credits; this was then followed up by a Chabon fansite, The Amazing Website of Kavalier and Clay, and they got the author himself confirm:

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.

And for me. If you aren’t doing a little dance around your room right now, then I don’t think you’ll be at my next birthday party.

Chabon’s screenplay for Spider-Man 2 (very similar in a great many respects to the shooting draft) was absolutely wonderful; better still are his novels - the very best of which, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay has been an on-again, off-again project for Stephen Daldry for some time. Frankly, that film needs a good solid shot of Gilliam or Kong-meets-Heavenly Creatures Peter Jackson. If you don’t know it, the best pitch I can probably give it is as a parallel universe version of the creation of Superman. The comic strip, not the character, note.

The tenth issue of McSweeney’s contained The Martian Agent: A Planetary Romance, a short story I assume was adapted from said screenplay. You can read an excerpt online for free, but stumping up for the whole book - indeed, any McSweeney’s book - is pretty well recommended.

Andrew Stanton is reportedly into casting and full-on prep for John Carter now, with shooting rumored to be scheduled for South Australian locations next year. With Chabon and Stanton working on the script, it simply can’t fail to be an absolute winner. This is something like a pulp fiction version of, say, Towne and Polanski collaborating on Chinatown but (hopefully) without the acrimony.

Via: io9