Thomas Haden Church, James Purefoy and Mark Strong
Three more actors have joined the cast of Andrew Stanton’s John Carter of Mars, the big Disney blockbuster based on A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. According to Heat Vision, Thomas Haden Church (Sideways, Spider-Man 3) is onboard to play Tal Hajus, an ambitious Thark, one of the tall four-armed Martians, waiting for his chance to be ruler. James Purefoy (Rome, The Philanthropist) gets the role of Kantos Kan, the captain of one of Helium kingdom’s floating warships. He’s one of the Red Martians, which are more or less human with reddish skin. Mark Strong (Body of Lies, Sherlock Holmes) will play Matai Shang who is reportedly a ruler of the Therns with godlike status. I’ve only read A Princess of Mars and this character didn’t appear in that one, so it appears that Stanton’s film will be pulling from more than just the first novel of the series. He seems to first appear in Warlord of Mars.
Stanton co-wrote the script with Mark Andrews while Michael Chabon did rewrites. The current cast includes Taylor Kitsch as John Carter, Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris, Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas, Samantha Morton as Sola, Dominic West as Sab Than and Polly Walker as Sarkoja. Filming is projected to begin early next year, giving the production a ton of time to produce and perfect the immense amount of CG and special effects required to bring the creatures of Mars to life. Along with Tron: Legacy, this is the other big non-animated tentpole from Disney that I’m psyched about. Stanton’s a great director and with such a long production schedule and all the talent involved, this should be epic.
The novel, A Princess of Mars, began its serialization in 1912 and spawned eight other novels and several shorter tales over the following thirty years. A Civil War veteran of the Confederate side, John Carter finds himself taking refuge in a cave after an Indian attack when he is mysteriously transported to Mars. Due to the lower gravity, Carter has superhuman strength on the planet, which helps win him favor among the Green Martians, a race of four-armed warriors twice the height of humans. When these people capture Dejah Thoris, princess of the humanlike Red Martians, Carter plots to save her and her people from their oppressors and winning her love along the way. It’s a classic example of sci-fi/fantasy pulp literature.
John Carter of Mars is scheduled for release during summer 2012.
