After being bounced around Hollywood for a number of years, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars sci-fi adventure stories may end up being animated by the Disney/Pixar toon machine. Citing anonymous sources, The Hollywood Reporter brings word that the studio is in final negotiations to acquire film rights to the Tarzan creator’s novels, which were first published in the early 1900s.
The 11-volume John Carter saga follows the adventures of a Civil War officer who is transported to Mars, where he is captured by green men before emerging as a great warrior and marrying a princess. The first title, A Princess of Mars, was published in serial form in the periodical All-Story in 1912.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, who is now CEO of DreamWorks Animation, planed to make an animated John Carter feature when he was with Disney back in the 1990s. In 2002, the Mouse House relinquished the film rights to Paramount Pictures, which has had several directors attached to the project. Robert Rodriguez had to bow out when he resigned from the Director’s Guild of America because they wouldn’t let him credit comic book creator Frank Miller as a co-director on Sin City. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow helmer Kerry Conrad then threw his name in the hat before Paramount tapped Elf and Zathrua director Jon Favreau to do the job. Favreau then left the project to direct Iron Man, Paramount’s live-action feature based on Marvel’s comics. Paramount then let its option on Burroughs’ stories run out.
With it’s recent People’s Choice Awards and Golden Globes wins for Cars, Dinsey’s Pixar is proving that its track record for producing animated features that resonate with critics and moviegoers remains untarnished. As evidenced by the 2004 superhero action-comedy The Incredibles and Walt Disney Feature Animation’s upcoming Meet the Robinsons, John Lasseter and crew are not afraid to experiment with genres, and a John Carter pic would be another departure from the fashionable talking-animal formula that most studios are adhering to.
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