Jon Favreau Of Mars Exclusive: Director talks sci-fi epic
Empire recently spoke to Zathura director and one time Swingers star, Jon Favreau, about his upcoming projects and got the full story on his proposed move into grown up action territory, John Carter of Mars…what do you mean you've never heard of it?
"It was written by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan) close to a hundred years ago," says Favreau for the unitiated. "It’s actually been a bit of a creative well spring than influenced Star Wars a great deal and Superman can kind of be traced back to it. Basically any science fiction goes back to the grandfather, which is John Carter. It’s about a civil war veteran – a cavalry captain – who finds himself transported to Mars and finds himself in the nexus of all these warring tribes on this dying planet with diminishing resources...He also finds himself with what I guess you would call super powers. At the time it was written we didn’t understand anything about going to planets with lower gravity and so the way it was expressed was that he had superhuman strength and leaping abilities. So he’s the guy who finds himself at the end of a war that was pretty meaningless, basically, and wasteful on Earth and ends up showing up on this planet as a super warrior who can actually make a difference. So it’s a bit of a fantasy in that respect."
See, Star Wars meets Superman and goes to war. Now that's exciting. The project has been on various Hollywood drawing boards for years, "since an animated version was proposed around the time of Snow White" according to Favreau. "This thing has gone through dozens of incarnations and because of how expansive it is and the fact that there’s only one human character and most of the other characters are fifteen feet tall green martians there has never been the technology available to bring it to the screen. But now with the technology that exists (Favreau sites Peter Jackson’s King Kong as the film that proves it can be done) I’m pretty confident that we come up with something really cool."
The movie is still in the development stages, but has the potential to be enormous. “The way it stands is that we have artists working on research, we’re working on a script and we should know by the spring whether we’re going ahead or if the project goes back on the woodpile…It’s pretty big. Theoretically it could spin out into a fully fledged franchise, which is, I think, what the holy grail is for the movie studios now.”
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John Carter of Mars seems to have been kicking around as an option for about as long as I can remember, and mostly kicked back into touch. Maybe Favreau can finally pull it off, let's hope so, this has all the elements to provide a missing link between Star Wars and Pirates Of The Carribean. Giant four-armed aliens, eight legged lizard/horses, women who lay eggs (?), mucho buckles being swashed...Heck! What's not to love? ... Read More
Give the guy a chance . I remember when everyone was worried about singer directing x men . I think we need a good old fashioned space opera that all ages can love rather than admire .Some of the genres finest films have been directed by people who have no association with sci fi . Reading the interview , you can tell he is in love with the subject matter , which is a good start for me . ... Read More
Well, being an admirer of fantasy/science-fiction illustrations, I learned about Edgar R. Burroughs John Carter of Mars after purchasing, 'The art of Michael Whelan' in the mid 90s in San Francisco. Michael's excellent artwork depicted scenes from the book and it certainly increased my interest and curiousity about it, although I never read the books, the artwork itself sold me. The issue that I have is that I dislike very strongly those who whether through ineptitude or disingenuousness direc... Read More
the problem with a book like this is that because so many stories stem from it, its going to beseen as a rip-off. thus, it will really not do too well even if it does do wel
if he wants my advice on how to get the film made go to either hammer and tongs or dave mckean, they'll set him right. ... Read More
I've loved this story ever since my grandfather gave me his copy, so it's a bit of a sentimental thing too... but suffice to say, fx-dependent (which these days isn't so much of an issue anyway) this one really will ROCK. Can Favreau do it? Time will tell and I trust him... ... Read More
i remember having a flick through my dads copy of one of the john carter books and...well....belive me when i say they better but a modern slant on it cos most of johns adventrues on mars tend to involve a original series style captain Kirk arrive-rescue-and-make-love-to-a-beautiful-woman-style adveture ... Read More
The League of extraordinary gentlemen vol 2. John Carter is on Mars in the initial stages of the book which then seamlessly incorporates The War of The Worlds.... (without any 'How did the video camera work' queries)
From my limited knowledge looks very exciting!!! ... Read More
