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"Edgar Rice Burroughs might be best-known for creating Tarzan, but he also captured imaginations with his stories of John Carter, a civil war hero who finds himself mysteriously transported to Mars. A Princess of Mars was the first in a series of 11 John Carter books, and now Disney and WALL-E director Andrew Stanton are at the helm of a movie adaptation for the sci-fi property. Digital Spy caught 20 minutes of preview footage, presented by Stanton, earlier this month and here&amp;#039;s what we found out... Early beginnings... Stanton first came across the story in Marvel Comics&amp;#039; John Carter, Warlord of Mars series. Seeking out the original novels - which he describes as &amp;quot;my Harry Potter&amp;quot; - he quickly became a fan.  Years later he discovered that his friends Michael Chabon (the novelist and screenwriter) and Mark Andrews (who he&amp;#039;d worked with at Pixar) also loved the stories, so the trio teamed up in 2006 to write a live-action movie for Stanton to direct. Intriguingly, the three all found out that they spent their childhood scribbling down pictures of how they envisioned John&amp;#039;s Mars-based adventures.  James Bond, Han Solo, Taylor Kitsch... When it came to casting the lead role, Stanton&amp;#039;s thoughts went back to TV show Friday Night Lights as he recalled how much he felt Taylor Kitsch resembled the character. His initial reluctance came because he thought Kitsch was too young - reading the novels as a boy, he always saw John as a man much older than him. However, when Stanton realised that both Sean Connery and Harrison Ford were in their 30s when they made Dr. No and Star Wars respectively, he knew he&amp;#039;d found his leading man. Casting the rest of the movie, the filmmaker said it was an excuse to bring on board all of his &amp;quot;favourite actors&amp;quot; such as Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, James Purefoy, Samantha Morton, Dominic West, Polly Walker, Bryan Cranston and Mark Strong.  An exotic Martian world... The preview footage we saw gave a nice taste of what to expect from John Carter. Stanton revealed that he was keen to find real locations and digitally build the world of Mars on top of it. &amp;quot;Believability&amp;quot; was his buzzword - he wants the audience to really feel that these events unfolded. To create the Thark characters, actors like Dafoe and Morton stood on stilts in motion capture suits. The teaser footage showed John&amp;#039;s first encounter with Dafoe&amp;#039;s Tars Tarkas and a huge battle scene in which the hero makes use of the lack of gravity to slay his Zodangan and Heliumite attackers. There&amp;#039;s also plenty of humour in the preview, notably when Bryan Cranston&amp;#039;s military man Powell clashes with Carter before his journey to Mars and an encounter with cute dog-like creature called a Calot when imprisoned.  Making a movie twice... Stanton admitted that directing John Carter was like making two films in one. Firstly, he had to shoot the live-action section then &amp;quot;make an animated movie&amp;quot; with the special effects, which amounted to more digital shots than we normally see in a Pixar movie. Throughout the process of making this movie, Stanton said that he&amp;#039;s known star Kitsch from the ages of 27 to 30. The director also spoke passionately about reshoots and insisted that there should be no stigma surrounding movies that go through that process. He said that the secret to Pixar&amp;#039;s success is that they make a film four times over - building it up and ripping it down until it works. That is something much more difficult to do in a live-action movie.  Title deliberations and a John Carter franchise... &amp;quot;No boy will see a movie called A Princess of Mars and no girl will see a movie called John Carter of Mars,&amp;quot; Stanton noted of the title changes. John Carter, he says, reflects the character-driven nature of the story. As for sequels, Stanton has the screen rights to the first three Burroughs books - A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars and The Warlord of Mars - and is prepped and raring to go if the film debuts to strong box office numbers next March. John Carter opens in UK and US cinemas on March 9, 2012. Are you looking forward to John Carter? Leave your comments in the space below! Watch the John Carter trailer below:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a350202/john-carter-andrew-stanton-previews-the-new-disney-blockbuster-epic/>