If the name Kerry Conran doesn’t sound familiar, that’s because he’s only made one movie: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. For a directorial debut, though, talk about a massive undertaking. The film is still largely considered a failure but its innovative use of green screen and digital effects foreshadowed what would become the standard in filmmaking in the years that followed.
One of those films is the upcoming John Carter, Andrew Stanton’s hugely expensive and highly anticipated adaptation of the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Before Stanton took the helm, though, John Carter of Mars was a property many, many producers and directors tried to tackle. We’ve all heard about Jon Favreau and Robert Rodriguez but one name we forget was Conran, a natural choice thanks to his digital work, who was attached to the film around the time of Sky Captain.
His attachment was probably in large part to an extensive demo reel used pitch his vision. And wouldn’t you know it? It’s online. Watch it after the jump. Read More »
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Posted on Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 by Angie Han
We got our first glimpse of the new trailer for Disney’s John Carter on Good Morning America several hours ago, but as promised, we now have a much better version to show you. And by “better,” I don’t just mean higher-quality, but also longer, somewhat more interesting, and a little more promising. Check it out after the jump.
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Double Academy Award-winning director of Finding Nemo and WALL-E, Andrew Stanton, is currently working on his first foray into live action, an adaptation of the classic sci-fi fantasy novel John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. For some reason, though, Disney has now changed the title from that to “Gary Carter,” the Hall Of Fame catcher for the 1986 New York Mets. No, I’m sorry. I meant John Carter. That’s the new official title. For real.
Another title change is one that’s makes a little more sense. Andrew Niccol is currently working on his Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried sci-fi film which was originally called I’m.mortal, then Now, but is now called In Time.
Getting out of the sci-fi genre, a new Maggie Gyllenhaal movie directed by Daniel Barnz (Beastly) was originally called Still I Rise but is now called Steel Town. Read more about all of these after the break. Read More »
The actors who play the characters in John Carter of Mars have long since left the Red Planet but Oscar-winning director Andrew Stanton is still hard at work. The Disney/Pixar sci-fi action film based on the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs is scheduled for release March 12, 2012 and Stanton recently gave a few updates as to what we can expect the film to look like, how much more work has to be done and more. Watch a video and read the quotes after the jump. Read More »
Briefly: It’s the release date shuffle. First Fox announced that Ridley Scott‘s ‘no longer an Alien prequel’ film Prometheus would release on March 9, 2012. Then just a week ago Disney moved Tim Burton’s feature-length Frankenweenie re-do from March 9 to October, and pulled the release date of John Carter of Mars back from June to March 9. The end result: Frankenweenie got a (hopefully) deserved October berth, and John Carter and Prometheus would be squaring off in March.
Now Fox has made the next move: Prometheus is now a summer picture, with a June 8, 2012 release date. Yep, that’s the date that John Carter of Mars vacated to compete with Prometheus in the first place. That’s all the new info we have on the film, though. Otherwise it’s still the basics: Ridley Scott directing an original sci-fi story from a script by Damon Lindelof (originally kicked into motion by Jon Spaiht‘s Alien prequel script) and starring Noomi Rapace. Charlize Theron is looking like a likely co-lead, though Angelina Jolie has been mentioned as well. There are male roles to cast, too, but no names yet.
Disney has shifted dates on two big films for 2012. Tim Burton‘s feature-length expansion of Frankenweenie has been moved from March 9, 2012 to October 5, 2012. Hopefully that’ll be a much more appropriate date for the film. Part of the reason for that date switch is that Disney has also moved John Stanton‘s John Carter of Mars up from June 8 to March 9, the date previously occupied by Frankenweenie.
The other thing that stands out about this shift is that Disney is clearly tweaking the face it presents to Fox, which will open Ridley Scott‘s ‘no longer an Alien prequel’ Prometheus on March 9. Speculate now on whether Disney thinks that John Carter is more equipped to directly face off against Ridley Scott — one sci-fi film against another, rather than counter-programming Frankenweenie against Prometheus. Or maybe Frankenweenie will need more time. Or there could be other reasons altogether — just rely on the dates for now.
Michael Giacchino has personally solved the problem of unemployment in America: just win an Oscar for Best Original Score. After Giacchino’s 2010 Oscar win for his amazing score to Up, the composer behind Star Trek and Lost has more jobs than a normal person would know what to do with. He just finished Let Me In, we already found out he will be scoring Andrew Stanton’s John Carter of Mars, but now we have official confirmation that he’s currently scoring Cars 2 for John Lasseter and Pixar, followed by Super 8 and Mission: Impossible 4 for frequent collaborators J.J. Abrams and Brad Bird respectively. He’s also “adapting John Williams’ themes for the refreshed Star Tours ride at Disneyland.” And that’s not even everything on the man’s plate. Find out what else he’s scoring, and more, after the break. Read More »
While Andrew Stanton‘s John Carter of Mars was never envisioned as a 3D movie, I’ve been hearing a lot of rumbling in recent months that Walt Disney Pictures is pushing to release the film in 3D. I’ve even heard they’ve ordered some 3D tests to convince director Andrew Stanton that post conversion 3D isn’t as horrible as the big baddies on the Internet say it is. Ironically, the film which launched the 3D craze, James Cameron’s Avatar, was actually very much inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ original novels. So it is interesting that Avatar is now becoming a heavy influence on the big screen adaptation of the books.
As far as I can tell, nothing is yet set in stone in terms of releasing John Carter of Mars in 3D, but it sure is looking that way. Who knows if the growing public perception of post converted 3D (ie Bad 3D) will be enough to convince Disney. But one recent development has got me thinking… if John Carter does get released in 3D, what does this mean for Pixar’s long in development, already-delayed, BraveThe Bear and the Bow (formerly titled )? Brave is set to hit theaters on June 15th 2012, while Disney just announced a June 8th 2012 release for John Carter of Mars. Read More »
