Bryan Cranston, the Emmy awarding winning Breaking Bad actor, who’s probably best known as Malcolm In The Middle’s father, is the latest actor to sign on to John Carter of Mars, the Disney/Pixar version of Edgar Rice Burrough’s classic, A Princess Of Mars.
The film will see an American Civil War veteran, played by Taylor Kitsch, transported to Mars, where he gets embroiled in the struggles of the planet’s warring peoples. Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, Dominic West, Thomas Haden-Church, James Purefoy and Polly Walker will also star in the film, which starts filming next week. According to HeatVisionBlog, Cranston is due to play a Civil War colonel who comes into conflict with Carter.
There also seems to be some confusion as to Pixar’s involvement in the film, and whether Disney is planning to use the Toy Story studio’s brand name on this live-action film. John Carter was developed at Pixar and will be directed by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall.E), with other Pixar folk behind the scenes, but Disney has suggested Pixar will have little to do with the actual filming and won’t, for example, work on the special effects for the film. So while it’s been described as Pixar’s first live action movie, it may end up that the animation’s studio’s name isn’t used that much on the final film.