John Carter of Mars Launches New Fantasy Film Franchise
This is an exciting time for the online science fiction and fantasy community. Ever since “Pirates of the Caribbean” shut down production, online fandom hasn’t had much to look forward to. All the big movie franchises like “Spider-man”, “Star Trek”, and “The Lord of the Rings” have sort of gone on hiatus, although sequels have been announced for each of these franchises. Only “Star Wars” seems to lack anything substantial in the future as far as theatrical movies is concerned.
But what about new franchises? Is anything really in the works? Absolutely. For example, Marvel Entertainment is developing a whole slew of movies about Norse gods, superhero companies, and secret agents. But maybe the big story of the year is the news that the Disney Studios have partnered with Pixar Animation to create a trio of live-action films based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars.
Excitement is running almost at a fever pitch and many sites have been publishing John Carter of Mars articles almost at the mention of every rumor and small news item. Several sites keep recapping the rumors and news they just reported 1-2 weeks before. The competition for attention is fierce.
But truth be told, there are true John Carter of Mars fan sites out there whose priorities differ from those of the news and blogging industries. The true fan sites just want to provide as much information as they can on a topic. Although some John Carter of Mars merchandise is already being offered for sale.
It isn’t very often that Hollywood announces the start of a major fantasy film franchise several years in advance. The first John Carter of Mars movie isn’t scheduled to be released until 2012 — and the timing of that movie is probably no mistake. The very first John Carter story, “Under the Moons of Mars”, was published in 1912.
