REEL MEMORIES NO. 210

REEL MEMORIES NO. 210

John Carter

by

William V. Reynolds

Edgar Rice Burroughs fans have been waiting patiently, or otherwise, for someone in the film

industry to bring the adventures of John Carter to the screen. Finally, the wait is over. March 9,

2012 Disney and Pixar are scheduled to release the movie John Carter. The making of this film

is no small achievement due to the storytelling talents of its author. I usually deal with the history

of a film or an actor, but today I want to look at the history of the story.

Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, Edgar Rice Burroughs began writing action adventure

stories which were sold mainly to pulp fiction publishers. In 1912 he began writing a series of

stories about Mars (Barsoom). This series eventually became a 11-book compilation. For the first

time in 1917, A Princess of Mars was released as a complete novel.

Burroughs continued to work on his Mars series as well as a Venus series. He is, of course, best

known for his work as the writer of Tarzan which captured the imagination of filmmakers as

early as 1918. Elmo Lincoln starred in the first Tarzan film about that time. The Mars series did

not attract attention until 1931.

Bob Clampett, director of Looney Tunes, approached Edgar Rice Burroughs with the idea of

adapting his first book of the Mars series into an animated feature. Clampett and his coworkers

worked on this project for some time, but it was finally canned. Then in the 1950s Ray

Harryhausen, a well-known special-effects artist, expressed an interest in filming the novels, but

it was not until the 1980s that the rights were purchased for Walt Disney pictures to compete

with Star Wars.

Over at Paramount Pictures, James Jacks, remembering that he had read the novels as a child,

convinced Paramount Pictures to acquire the film rights. This led to a bidding war with

Columbia Pictures. Jacks got the film rights and tried to put it all together, but it didn’t work.

In January of 2007, Disney regained the rights. By 2008 they had completed the first draft for

part one of the film trilogy. The film was to be based on the first novel only. The film was

originally titled John Carter of Mars, but Andrew Stanton who was in charge of the project,

decided to remove the “of Mars” because he believed it would appeal to a broader audience.

Portions of the film were made at Longcross Studios, London. The Mars scenes were filmed in

the state of Utah where the scenery easily doubles for the red planet. The Utah locations include

Lake Powell as well as Grand, Wayne, and Kane counties.

The film will be rated PG-13 and released in several formats including 3-D. Fans of Edgar Rice

Burroughs will want to check this one out to see if the filmmakers have captured the spirit of

John Carter, Warlord of Mars.

William V. Reynolds is a local author and his novels are available at The Curiosity Shop in