In conjunction with an interview in the Los Angeles Times, director Andrew Stanton has released some concept art for his John Carter of Mars movie, which is based on the Barsoom novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and is slated to hit theaters in March of 2012. The film, which is Pixar’s first live-action film, is now in post-production as the extensive special effects are being added.
In the very revealing interview with the L.A. Times’ Geoff Boucher Stanton talks about creating a unified narrative from the episodic structure of ERB’s A Princess of Mars, which was written as monthly magazine installments each with a cliffhanger ending, and about his basic approach to the highly influential, but often scientifically-challenged Edwardian science fiction novel that was serialized in 1912.
Stanton noted that he looked at a number of films and TV series such as Lawrence of Arabia, Rome, Shogun, and Apocaplyto that all demonstrated a great deal of historical research. These productions provide a sense of what it would be like to live during that period, so Stanton thought “Well, what if we did our Martian research really, really well and treated it as a period film?” The writers (including Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon) and the art directors all poured over A Guide to Barsoom compiled by John Flint Roy, an encyclopedic work published in 1979 that chronicles almost all the elements that Burroughs injected into his 11 Barsoom novels.
Stanton also talked about how he kept using the term “authentic” when talking to the art department, and how he wanted things to look “beat up and old,” citing Terry Gilliam’s sense of production values. Since by being faithful to his source and treating it seriously Stanton runs the risk of evoking memories of those cheesy Flash Gordon serials with their extras outfitted in ill-fitting breastplates looking like some misplaced extras from a bad roadshow production of Ben Hur who have been mysteriously transported to another planet, attention to detail would appear to be a necessity.