Stanton reveals that "John Carter of Mars" NOT a PIXAR movie

[Michael]

From Ain't It Cool News:

I was able to attend a luncheon before the panel and sat with Tom McCarthy and Andrew Stanton. Of course John Carter of Mars had to come up. He also elaborated on the panel, but here’s what’s going on with JOHN CARTER OF MARS:

- It is live action.

- “It is huge, it is exciting, it scares the crap out of me. It’s either going to make me or break me.”

- It is NOT a Pixar movie, rather a Disney film. However Stanton’s creative team from Pixar are all still involved.

- The style is going to be very real, not highly stylized. He said that 20 some years ago that version could have been made, but since Star Wars and a whole glut of science fiction and fantasy films have ripped off giant portions of JCOM over the years the only option he sees is doing a straight up, realistic version of the story. He described it as if it was a National Geographic crew that stumbled across a preserved civilization while exploring a cave. Very real, but awe-inspiring.

- He is not planning nor wanting to shoot it 3-D (thank God… I love James Cameron, and I think AVATAR is going to be amazing, but I’m getting tired of every big event movie being 3-D), but thinks Disney might want to push him towards it.

- Stanton has been a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs since he was a kid, so while he won’t have the same kind of development time on this one as he had on his animated movie he looks at it as him living with the story in his brain for 40 plus years instead of the 6-8 of his animated films.

- He has his second draft done and will be casting soon.

- John Carter WILL be a Civil War soldier.

All I can say is, "Thank God for Star Wars". I love the PIXAR movies but I have to be honest and say that some of their themes don't fit well with hard-core swashbuckler themes. John Carter is all about swashing the buckle in space. I would prefer to see a serious, live-action movie augmented by computer animation.

[Boomstick]

Interesting. I'm not sure about that whole 'realistic' approach business, though. If they water it down too much it'll lose a lot of it's appeal, I think.

[Michael]

Disney or Pixar, either firm is going to produce a family-friendly movie. I can live with that as long as the character is mainly faithful to ERB's vision. There are some dicey moments in the books (naked girls and guys and all that) but nothing like more recent fantasy novelists have introduced (anyone remember John Norman's Gor books?).

As long as there are no Playboy models in the lead roles, I think they'll have a chance to win hearts, break hearts, and do okay.