John Carter of Mars is GO!

But will you want to watch it?

This news item has been percolating for some time. But as there have been announcements before that came to nothing I decided to take a wait-and-see approach. Seems, this time, the news may be more than mere pipedream rumor. Long story short the long awaited John Carter of Mars movie is finally a go. The bad news: It's going to be a Disney production. According to Screen Crave: "The director is leaning towards an older target audience, and expects the movie to be rated PG-13."

In other words it's going to be another dumbed down piece of 'tween targeted drivel. But then we already knew Hollywood was probably going to rape this "property", so don't expect a faithful adaptation; the novels are too politically incorrect for that. But maybe the director, Andrew Stanton (Wall-E, Nemo), is intelligent enough to realize such target audience pandering didn't work for Land of the Lost and come to his senses. Wouldn't you much rather hear a director talk about how faithful an adaptation he's going to make? The man's not even started shooting and he's already more worried about target demographics than shooting a faithful adaptation of the novels. Such is the way of Hollyweird; business first filmmaking last.

As for the cast so far it includes Taylor Kitsch (as John Carter), Lynn Collins (as Dejah Thoris) and, according to Screen Rant, Thomas Haden Church in an as yet to be identified role. The movie is slated to begin production either sometime in 2010 or this November, depending on which article you want to believe.

For more info see the articles at Screen Rant, Hollywood Reporter, MTV Movies Blog, Reel Talk, Screen Crave, KSL, and Slash Films.

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