New JOHN CARTER Images; Will It Offer Something New?
Disney’s John Carter is something of a gamble; it’s based on a property that’s 100 years old, which most people (except hardcore fans) haven’t heard of. To exacerbate things, the character, themes and settings of the source material have been pillaged by everyone from George Lucas to James Cameron in films like Star Wars and Avatar.
Other snags include almost a century in development with false starts at a myriad of studios. Once it finally went into production at Disney, the title was changed to the rather mundane John Carter, which is a far cry from the original (and more exotic) John Carter of Mars. Apparently, chicks don’t dig movies with “Mars” in the title. Fact.
Having said that, the studio has pumped about $200 million of cash into the film – and that’s only the production budget, with millions more spent of marketing the film and setting it up as a viable franchise starter. The film stars Battleship (which I won’t be watching) star Taylor Kitsch playing the titular character, with support from Willem Dafoe amongst others.
It remains to be seen if Disney’s gamble will pay off, but while we’re waiting to find out you can check a slew of new images, and to be fair, it looks good- in a Flash Gordon/Star Wars sort of way.
Read the official synopsis:
“From Academy Award–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.”
