Hey folks, Harry here. One of my all time dream projects has been JOHN CARTER OF MARS based on the amazing books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Reading classic pulp fiction from the late teens through the mid-fifties was a benefit of growing up in a Paper Nostalgia shop run by my father. Having copies of the original St. John's editions... the original pulps, paperbacks, Frazetta prints, Marvel Comics, Dell Comics and oh yeah... the Gold Key comics amongst others.... Well I was exposed to it in heap loads.

The closest vintage attempt at JOHN CARTER that I'm aware of was the classic Warner Brothers animator Bob Clampett's almost collaboration with (if memory serves) John Coleman Burroughs in the early to mid-thirties on a developed feature length animated version of JOHN CARTER OF MARS. The tests for this can be found on the BEANIE AND CECIL dvd (a super cool dvd btw) which would have been the first feature length animated film, years before SNOW WHITE, but the investors chickened out and didn't have faith that a feature length animated film could hold the attention of an audience. SIGH!!!! It could very well have changed for all time the direction that the feature animated American film would have gone. Alas, the short sighted rule the Earth!

Then for a short time almost 5-8 years ago, PRINCESS OF MARS was in heavy development at Disney as a live-action Tom Cruise / Julia Roberts project, with a script that frankly... I kinda dug. It wasn't super great, but it was cool as all hell!

Now yesterday I got the drop from multiple sources that Sean Daniel and Jim Jacks, the producers on films like TOMBSTONE and THE MUMMY and THE SCORPION KING and DAZED AND CONFUSED had won the battle for the rights to JOHN CARTER OF MARS!

I wrote Sean Daniel to hear what I could hear, because my sources had told me that they were picking it up for Dwayne Johnson aka THE ROCK to star in. Well, given I've been hearing some encouraging word on THE ROCK in SCORPION KING I was curious to find out more, so I wrote Sean Daniel to see if I could get some news about all this. Here's a bit of what he told me...

" We and the studio are really excited. We are not casting it yet and so the reports about buying it for The Rock are untrue. Not saying he's not on the list as John Carter- we love him and the movie world is about to discover that he's the real deal-but truthfully as always first things first: a great script based on the first book. (ED. NOTE: PRINCESS OF MARS - 1917)" -- Sean Daniel (THE MUMMY movies, DAZED AND CONFUSED, THE GIFT and many others)

Ok, now the possible good part about Sean Daniel and Jim Jacks getting this property is that they will most likely want to make it period, and given their track record with box office for doing period fantasy adventure... They can probably get it done. Also the film is at Paramount - home of the original RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, which should mean they get period action.

The keys are going to be getting the right man to play John Carter ahemKURT RUSSELLahem or ahemMatthewMcCounagheyahem or ahemRusselCroweahem sorry, something in my throat there... Plus getting a director that loves this sort of fantasy material and can deliver upon it. Obviously their association with Stephen Sommers puts him in the race, and frankly I feel they need to have this have a different look from THE MUMMY movies... It shouldn't just be THE MUMMY on Mars... Frankly, I'd go after folks like Frank Darabont, Robert Rodriguez, Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg and their type. I throw in Rodriguez and Darabont because they have been looking into this type of film. Darabont with his DOC SAVAGE (WHICH NEEDS TO GET MADE) and Rodriguez, who worships the ground that Ray Harryhausen, Burroughs and Robert E Howard walked on... and this is right there.

With the success of a film like LORD OF THE RINGS, I really feel the smart thing to do is to downplay the cheeky humor that the Jacks/Sommers produced epic fantasy films have had, to play this as a straight adventure film told by exquisite screenwriters and a director with a singular mature vision for the material respecting Burrough's original vision.

Unfortunately, my dream of this having the look and tone of John Ford's THE SEARCHERS is probably too much to ask for. That this movie have majesty and capture the dream of adventure on a far off planet with four armed creatures, where you have superhuman abilities, and where the weaponry is still blade weaponry and holstered guns.

Perhaps they'll get this all right. That they won't rush it, but take the time to nail it the way it should be nailed. Enjoy the pics and the news!