John Carter (film)

John Carter (also titled on-screen as John Carter of Mars) is a 2012 American science fiction action-adventure film directed by Andrew Stanton, written by Stanton, Mark Andrews, and Michael Chabon, and based on A Princess of Mars, the first book in the Barsoom series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Produced by Jim Morris, Colin Wilson and Lindsey Collins, it stars Taylor Kitsch in the title role, with Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy and Willem Dafoe co-starring in supporting roles. It chronicles the first interplanetary adventure of John Carter and his attempts to mediate civil conflict amongst the warring kingdoms of Barsoom.

Several attempts to adapt the Barsoom series had been made since the 1930s by various major studios and producers. Most of these efforts ultimately stalled in development hell. In the late-2000s, Walt Disney Pictures began a concerted effort to adapt Burroughs' works to film, after an abandoned venture in the 1980s. The project was driven by Stanton, who had pressed Disney to renew the screen rights from the Burroughs estate. Stanton became the new film's director in 2009. It was his live-action debut, after his directorial work for Disney on Pixar's Finding Nemo and WALL-E. Stanton and his Pixar colleague Andrews wrote the initial draft of the screenplay, which Chabon was brought on to revise.

Filming began in November 2009, with principal photography underway in January 2010, wrapping seven months later in July. Michael Giacchino, who scored many Pixar films, composed the music. As with Pixar's Brave that same year, the film is dedicated to the memory of Steve Jobs, who was CEO and majority shareholder of Pixar prior to Disney's acquisition in 2006.

John Carter had its world premiere at the Regal Cinemas at L.A. Live in Los Angeles on February 22, 2012, and was released in the United States by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures on March 9, marking the centennial of the titular character's first appearance. It was presented in Disney Digital 3D, RealD 3D and IMAX 3D formats. John Carter received mixed reviews, with praise for its visuals, Giacchino's score, and the action sequences, but criticism of the characterization and plot. It failed at the North American box office, but set an opening-day record in Russia. It grossed $284 million at the worldwide box office, resulting in a $200 million writedown for Disney, becoming one of the biggest box office bombs in history and also becoming the film with the largest estimated box-office loss adjusted for inflation ever, losing $149–265 million. With a total cost of $350 million, including an estimated production budget of $263 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made. Due to its box office performance, Disney cancelled plans for Gods of Mars and Warlord of Mars, the rest of the trilogy Stanton had planned.

Plot

In 1881, Edgar Rice Burroughs arrives at the estate of his recently deceased uncle, John Carter, a former American Civil War Confederate Army captain who died suddenly. Per Carter's instructions, the body is put in a tomb that can be unlocked only from the inside. His attorney gives Carter's personal journal to Burroughs to whom Carter bequeathed his fortune.

In a flashback to 1868 in the Arizona Territory, Union Colonel Powell arrests Carter with hopes that Carter will help in fighting local Apache. Carter escapes his holding cell, but fails to get far with U.S. cavalry soldiers in close pursuit. After a run-in with a band of Apaches, Carter and a wounded Powell are chased until they hide in a cave that turns out to be filled with gold. A Thern appears in the cave at that moment and, surprised by the two men, attacks them with a knife; Carter kills him but accidentally activates the Thern's powerful medallion and is unwittingly transported to a ruined and dying planet, Barsoom, known to Carter as Mars. Because of his different bone density and the planet's lower gravity, Carter is able to jump high and perform feats of incredible strength. He is captured by the Tharks, a nomadic tribe of Green Martians and their Jeddak, Tars Tarkas.

Elsewhere on Barsoom, the Red Martian cities of Helium and Zodanga have been at war for a thousand years. Sab Than, Jeddak of Zodanga, armed with a special weapon obtained from the Thern leader Matai Shang, proposes a cease-fire and an end to the war by marrying the Princess of Helium, Dejah Thoris. The Princess escapes and is rescued by Carter.

Carter, Dejah, and Tarkas's daughter, Sola, reach a spot in a sacred river to find a way for Carter to get back to Earth. They discover that the medallions are powered by a "ninth ray" that is also the source of Sab Than's weapon. They are then attacked by a vicious race called the Warhoon under the direction of Shang. Carter and Dejah are taken back to Zodanga. A demoralized Dejah grudgingly agrees to marry Sab Than and gives Carter instructions on how to use the medallion to return to Earth. Carter decides to stay but is captured by Shang, who explains to him the purpose of Therns and how they manipulate the civilizations of different worlds to their doom, feeding off the planet's resources in the process, and intend to do the same thing with Barsoom by choosing Sab Than to rule the planet. Carter escapes and returns to the Tharks with Sola to request their help. There they discover a ruthless brute, Tal Hajus, has overthrown Tarkas. Carter and an injured Tarkas battle with two enormous Great White-Apes in an arena before Carter kills Hajus, thereby becoming the leader of the Tharks.

The Thark army storms Zodanga, but it is empty; realizing their army is waiting outside Helium, Carter and the Tharks commandeer the Zodangan airships and fly to Helium. Carter defeats the Zodangan army, while Sab Than is killed and Shang is forced to escape. Carter becomes prince of Helium by marrying Dejah. On their first night, Carter decides to stay on Mars and throws away his medallion. Seizing the opportunity, Shang briefly reappears and gives Carter another challenge by sending him back to Earth. Carter embarks on a long quest to find one of the Therns' medallions on Earth; after several years he appears to die suddenly and asks for unusual funeral arrangements — consistent with his having found a medallion, since his return to Mars would leave his Earth body in a coma-like state, and makes Burroughs his protector.

Back in the present, Burroughs runs back to Carter's tomb and uses clues to open it. Just as he does so, a Thern appears and raises a weapon before Carter appears and shoots the Thern dead. He reveals that he had never found another medallion; instead, he devised a scheme to lure a Thern from hiding, thus winning Shang's challenge. Carter then uses the dead Thern's medallion to return to Barsoom.

Cast

Taylor Kitsch as John Carter, a Confederate army captain who is transported to Mars.
Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris, the Princess of Helium.
Samantha Morton as Sola, a Thark who works with John Carter.
Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas, the Jeddak of the Tharks and Sola's father.
Thomas Haden Church as Tal Hajus, a vicious Thark who dislikes John Carter and Tars Tarkas.
Mark Strong as Matai Shang, the Hekkador of the Therns.
Ciarán Hinds as Tardos Mors, the Jeddak of Helium and Dejah Thoris' father.
Dominic West as Sab Than, the Jeddak of Zodanga.
James Purefoy as Kantos Kan, the Odwar of the ship Xavarian.
Bryan Cranston as Colonel Powell, a Union colonel who wants John to help his U.S. cavalry soldiers against the Apache. He is loosely based on James K. Powell from the book.
Daryl Sabara as Ned, John Carter's nephew.
Polly Walker as Sarkoja, a merciless Thark who hates Sola.
David Schwimmer as a young Thark Warrior, a Thark who informs Tars Tarkas that 18 of the Thark eggs did not hatch.
Jon Favreau as the Thark bookmaker, a Thark who collects the bets on any conflict.
Don Stark as Dix, a shopkeeper at an Arizona town where John Carter stops.
Nicholas Woodeson as Dalton, John Carter's executor who summons Edgar.
Art Malik as a Zodangan General.

Development

Origins

right|upright|thumb|Cover of the first edition of [[A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs]]

The film is largely based on A Princess of Mars (1912), the first in a series of 11 Burroughs novels to feature the interplanetary hero John Carter (and in later volumes the adventures of his children with Dejah Thoris). The story was originally serialized in six monthly installments (from February through to July 1912) in the pulp magazine The All-Story; those chapters, originally titled "Under the Moons of Mars", were then collected as a novel and published in hardcover five years later by A. C. McClurg.

Bob Clampett involvement

In 1931, director Bob Clampett approached Edgar Rice Burroughs with the idea of adapting A Princess of Mars into a feature-length animated film. Burroughs responded enthusiastically, recognizing that a regular live-action feature would face various limitations to adapt accurately, so he advised Clampett to write an original animated adventure for John Carter. Working with Burroughs' son John Coleman Burroughs in 1935, Clampett used rotoscope and other hand-drawn techniques to capture the action, tracing the motions of an athlete who performed John Carter's powerful movements in the reduced Martian gravity, and designed the green-skinned, 4-armed Tharks to give them a believable appearance. He then produced footage of them riding their eight-legged Thoats at a gallop, which had all of their eight legs moving in coordinated motion; he also produced footage of a fleet of rocketships emerging from a Martian volcano. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was originally set to release the cartoons, and the studio heads were enthusiastic about the series.

The test footage, produced by 1936, received negative reactions from film exhibitors across the U.S., especially in small towns; many gave their opinion that the concept of an Earthman on Mars was just too outlandish an idea for midwestern American audiences to accept. The series was not given the go-ahead, and Clampett was instead encouraged to produce an animated Tarzan series, an offer that he later declined. Clampett recognized the irony in MGM's decision, as the Flash Gordon movie serial, released in the same year by Universal Studios, was highly successful. He speculated that MGM believed that serials were played only to children during Saturday matinees, whereas the John Carter tales were intended to be seen by adults during the evening. The footage that Clampett produced was believed lost for many years, until Burroughs' grandson, Danton Burroughs, in the early 1970s found some of the test films in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. archives.

Disney progression

During the late 1950s, stop-motion animation effects director Ray Harryhausen expressed interest in filming the novels, but it was not until the 1980s that producers Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna bought the rights for the Walt Disney Studios via Cinergi Pictures, with a view to creating a competitor to the original Star Wars trilogy and Conan the Barbarian. Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were hired to write, while John McTiernan and Tom Cruise were approached to direct and star. The project collapsed because McTiernan realized that visual effects were not yet advanced enough to recreate Burroughs' vision of Barsoom. The project remained at Disney, and Jeffrey Katzenberg was a strong proponent of filming the novels, but the rights eventually returned to the Burroughs estate. Rodriguez had previously stirred up film industry controversy owing to his decision to credit Sin Citys artist/creator Miller as co-director on the film adaptation; as a result, Rodriguez decided to resign from the Directors Guild of America. In 2004, unable to employ a non-DGA filmmaker, Paramount assigned Kerry Conran to direct and Ehren Kruger to rewrite the John Carter script. The Australian Outback was scouted as a shooting location. Conran left the film for unknown reasons and was replaced in October 2005 by Jon Favreau.

Stanton then lobbied Disney heavily for the chance to direct the film, pitching it as "Indiana Jones on Mars". The studio was initially skeptical. Stanton had never directed a live-action film before, and wanted to make the film without any major stars whose names could guarantee an audience, at least on opening weekend. The screenplay was seen as confusing and difficult to follow. However, since Stanton had overcome similar preproduction doubts to make WALL-E and Finding Nemo into hits, the studio approved him as director. Stanton noted he was effectively being "loaned" to Walt Disney Pictures because Pixar is an all-ages brand and John Carter, in his words, was "not going to be an all-ages film".

By 2008, the first draft for Part One of a John Carter film trilogy was completed; the first film is based only on the first novel. Stanton and his Pixar colleague Mark Andrews wrote this draft. In April 2009 author Michael Chabon confirmed he had been hired to revise Stanton and Andrews' script. "I'm really good at structure and collaborating," Stanton explained, "but Michael is just technically, poetically, and intelligence-wise a better writer".

Following the completion of WALL-E, Stanton visited the archives of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., in Tarzana, California, as part of his research. He also noted that although he had less time for pre-production than for any of his usual animated projects, the task was nevertheless relatively easy since he had read Burroughs' novels as a child and had already visualized many of their scenes. Stanton prepared for directing by losing , running a week, and vowed not to go to his trailer or even sit down except when absolutely necessary to avoid looking like "the privileged animation geek who'd cheated his way to the top".

Many actors were considered for the title role. Aware that Carter's backstory as an officer in the Confederate Army might be a problem for modern audiences, Stanton envisioned the character as disillusioned and disgusted with war in general, apart from the side he fought on. "I wanted to not absolve him of that, but also not make him pro the side he was on. The best I could do was neutralize him". Taylor Kitsch quickly became his choice for the part, due to a scene in the Friday Night Lights television series—his character, angry, is left behind by the bus—that captured Stanton's vision for the character, as Kitsch's pose echoed that of Carter on one cover of the books in Stanton's collection.

Dafoe also had to do dialogue in Thark, developed for the film by Paul Frommer, who had developed the Na'vi language for Avatar. He had worked before with Stanton on Finding Nemo, where he had come to like him. Dafoe found it pleasantly surprising that, given Stanton's background in animation, he refused to rely on the effects. "He really felt like he had to have the movie, so when we started these scenes, there was no 'oh, the CGI will do that' or 'they'll do that in post," he said, which kept the film character-driven. Other locations in Utah included Lake Powell and Grand, Wayne, and Kane counties. Cinematographer Dan Mindel believed that the entire movie should have been shot in the Four Corners region of the southwestern U.S., the only place on Earth he felt could convincingly pass for Mars. "A lot of the studio work that we had done was so compromised because of the choice of studio, the size of the stages, the fact that it was all inside when it should have been outside, all that kind of stuff".

But Mindel also liked the flaws in that process. Older Panavision lenses have imperfections and aberrations, and "At a purely organic level, the light does unmanageable things when it hits an aberration", he said. "An unquantifiable magic happens, and I love that!" That unpredictability, and the effect on the film's texture and grain, gave Mindel images he hoped would "[feel] inherently realistic in spite of the fantastical creatures and the extensive digital-visual-effects technology behind them". For John Carter he used Panavision's Primo and C-Series anamorphic lenses and ATZ and AWZ zoom lenses, with Kodak's Vision3 500T Color Negative 5219 and 200T 5213 stock.

Stanton reshot much of the movie twice, far more than was common in live action filmmaking at that time. He attributed that to his animation background.

Collins believes that the reshoot was detrimental for her character. Originally filmed as a strong, independent warrior, the scenes added, such as those with her father, made her seem more vulnerable; and scenes like those in which she had slapped Carter were cut. She believes the studio wanted a softer take on Thoris and was reduced to asking Stanton every day what would work with that and just doing it. There were many effects and CGI shots to finish. Stanton recalls that "[t]here were more animated shots in what was left to do on Carter than an entire animated feature". Animating the Tharks, especially in large numbers during battle scenes, proved particularly challenging; the software had to be upgraded for it, and as one animator recalls, work scenes sometimes took three hours to open. Many of those working on the CGI were particularly appreciative of Stanton, since due to his background he had considerable expertise in the area and made himself more available than directors of such films usually are. His ideas were used instead, and he ignored criticism that using a cover version of Led Zeppelin's 1975 song "Kashmir" in the trailer released in conjunction with an ad aired during that year's Super Bowl would make it seem less current to the contemporary younger audiences the film sought. Following the death of Steve Jobs, Stanton dedicated the film in his memory. Stanton changed the title to that from the book's title early in 2011, "because not a single boy would go". Later he removed "of Mars" to make it more appealing to a broader audience, calling the film an "origin story ... about a guy becoming John Carter of Mars". Kitsch said the title was changed to reflect the character's journey, as John Carter would become "of Mars" only in the film's last few minutes. Former Disney marketing president Carney has also been blamed for suggesting the title change.

Another reported explanation for the name change was that Disney had suffered a significant loss in March 2011 with Mars Needs Moms; Carney reportedly conducted a study which noted recent movies with the word "Mars" in the title had not been commercially successful. Chabon responds that all those films were poorly regarded by critics. Stanton reportedly believed there was enough awareness of the books that this would not be a problem, to which another marketing executive responded, "People don't say, 'I know what I'll be for Halloween! I'll be John Carter!</p> enough for Kitsch to publicly concur with criticisms of the film's marketing campaign,

Early 2012

After several weeks away from her office, Carney left at the beginning of 2012, with four years remaining on her contract, for the beginning of the period immediately preceding the film's release when promotional efforts become more intensive. He committed to spending over $100 million to that end. As that date approached, the usual aspects of Disney's marketing pushes for big-budget tentpole films were absent. There were no large merchandise displays in the company's online and retail stores, nor at big-box stores like Target.