The cast is certainly shaping up for Pixar’s first foray into live action territory, John Carter Of Mars. Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins and Willem Dafoe have already signed up, and now The Hollywood Reporter is letting it be known that Dominic West, Samantha Morton and Polly Walker will also be heading off on the interplanetary adventure.
John Carter Of Mars, to be directed by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-E), is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ (King Solomon’s Mines) 1917 novel, A Princess Of Mars, about a Civil War veteran who is tranplanted to Mars, where he finds a civilisation of 12-foot-tall green barbarians. He also comes across Dejah Thoris, Princess Of Helium, who’s desperately in need of a savior.
Morton is set to play Sola, the daughter of Dafoe’s Tars Tarkis, who develops an alliance with John Carter despite being from a race of viscious warriors. West will be Sab Than of the Zodangans, who wants to rule Mars, while Polly Walker will be yet another Alien, this time an merciless Thark called Markoja. However as they’re all aliens and this is a Pixar movie, it’ll be interesting to see whether any of these actors playing aliens will actually look like themselves when the film gets to the screen, or whether they’ll be completely replaced by CGI.
The movie is due to start filming in Utah this autumn, with a release planned for 2012.