This past week, Entertainment Weekly gave us our first look at the first official image from Disney’s upcoming ‘John Carter’. The film is an adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs classic tale ‘John Carter of Mars’. The official synopsis of the film gives us an idea of the epic scale of this picture:
From Academy Award(R)-winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton comes “John Carter”–a sweeping action-adventure set on the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars). “John Carter” is based on a classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose highly imaginative adventures served as inspiration for many filmmakers, both past and present. The film tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.
The first image from EW gave us a look at John Carter in an arena facing off against a huge white ape creature. Director Andrew Stanton says of the massive beast that it is “a formidable creature that you kind of hear about throughout the movie, but you never really witness [They are] nocturnal, almost like moles — they stopped using their eyes, and just had a heightened sense of smell.”
What a creature! On top of that amazing shot, yesterday, six more images from the film hit the net, including a look at a creature called the CGI motion captured Tars Tarkas (played and voiced by Willem Dafoe) and a new creature called the Woola. We also get our first look at Lynn Collins as Princess Dejah.
While I’ll probably lose some geek cred for admitting that I’ve never read the original tale, the film does seem to have a sort of ‘Star Wars’ meets ‘Conan’ vibe that I think looks pretty darn cool to me. I’m looking forward to seeing what Disney does with this one.
Along with the images, it was hinted that a new trailer would hit within a few days. Until then, have a look at the first teaser trailer that was released a couple of months ago:
‘John Carter of Mars’ is directed by Andrew Stanton, stars Taylor Kitsch, Willem Dafoe, Lynn Collins, and Bryan Cranston. It is set to hit theaters in 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D on March 9, 2012.
