Andrew Stanton Discusses The SFX Of JOHN CARTER

With a rumored budget of $200-$250 million (devoted chiefly to SFX), John Carter director Andrew Stanton addresses that, Avatar and other obstructions to making the movie a success.

By MarkJulian - Feb 09, 2012 09:02 AM EST

Filed Under: John Carter of Mars

Reportedly needing to earn $700 Million at the box office to justify a sequel and with the rather lukewarm reception the movie has received thus far, I think it's fair to say that John Carter is facing an uphill battle. Still, all it takes is word of mouth and positive reviews and people will flock to theaters [see Iron Man and the more recent Chronicle].Collider was granted on-set access to the production of John Carter and here's a snippet of director Andrew Stanton addressing various challenges of pulling off the feature film adaption of the beloved Edgar Rice Burroughs novels .

QUESTION: This film has an extensive post-production phase –

STANTON: I don’t call it post. I call it “Principal Digital Photography”. Once you look at it like that, you realize, yeah, I’m not done with this shoot at all when I finish in June. Four of my leads are CG and I’d say three or four supporting cast members are CG. Then half the world — not half literally, but the extension of worlds and the extension of sets. These things that are so massive and fantastical that you can’t build them — have to be done. The movie always was planned to be half CG and half live action. Not in look, but in the attempt to build this vision we had. Hopefully, if we do it right, when it’s all done, nothing will look CG and you’ll just accept it. That’s all I ever wanted. I always came to this just as a fan. I’ve spent 40 years of my life just wanting to see somebody make this movie and just see it as a fan and only four realizing, “Oh my god! I can maybe be the one to do that.” All I ever wanted was to just believe it and see it on the screen. That’s really my goal, to not be showy or spectacle for as much as there is, but just believe that I’m really there. Because I’ve spent a whole lifetime just wanting to go there.

QUESTION: Can you talk about approaching it as a fan and what it meant to be able to bring it to life as a super-fan of the property?

STANTON: Well, I’ve been a fan of movies longer than anything else. One thing I learned a long time ago is that you can’t translate a book literally to the screen. It won’t work because it’s a different medium. And it would be the same in reverse. There’s this naive belief by some people that, if you do exactly what’s in the book, it’s going to be good. I would say that that’s false thinking. I would say that even movies you think are great adaptations of the book, if you were to compare them, you would suddenly realize, “Oh my gosh. They changed a lot.”

QUESTION:What would you say that, at the core, was the most important aspect to maintain?

STANTON: Well, the books were serials. The thing that people don’t realize is that the books were originally written as serial chapters in magazines. They all had a three act structure in each chapter. You can’t make a movie like that. It’ll just be this episodic series of train cars going together and it’ll annoy people. How can you keep the spirit of what it felt like to be in the book and to be in these scenes and to be with these characters and to make it work in a three act structure for an overall film. That’s where I came at it. Believe me, there’s a million scenes that I just imagined in my head reading a million times over in the book since I was a kid. Now that I’m older, I still want to see them and I’m trying my hardest to see that they exist in the film, but the thing that has got to work first and foremost is that the story overall works. And that I invest in the character. To be honest, I never actually invested in Carter 100%. He was always a kind of Prince Valiant, did-it-right-from-the-get-go kind of bland, vanilla guy. I think it was his situation that was more fascinating to me. It was a stranger in a strange land, guy thrown out to circumstances. Also, there’s the oddity of the time period. I really love that somebody from the Civil War gets thrown into what we would consider the antiquated past of Mars. That’s been something that I’ve really tried to embrace on this and give it its special thumbprint.

Its been such the touchstone for so many things since 1912. It inspired, either directly or indirectly, things like “Flash Gordon”, “Star Wars”, “Superman” all the way up to “Avatar”. If you literally made the book, people would think I was ripping off everyone else and that’s the catch-22 about it. So I thought, “What’s the spin into it that will make it feel fresh and stand on its own ground?” The approach that I finally decided on was that it should feel like a period film. It should feel like it’s historically accurate to everything that really does happen on Mars, as odd as that sounds. It’s the same way that I might watch a film about a civilization that I didn’t know about in the deep regions of South America or the Middle East of Asia. If it’s done in the right way, maybe I’ll go, “Wow! Maybe that’s how it really is on Mars.” I’ll sense these layers of history that go behind it and that go unexplained. I’ve already gotten to see a bit of what it’s like to juxtapose New York City in 1888 against suddenly cutting to Mars and cutting to Arizona in the same time period. It really has a nice, period spin on it. Cross my fingers, I hope it’ll go in that direction if not nail exactly what I was going for. I think that’s what’s needed to make it stand out on its own. If you really nail out the bones of it, it’s a structure that many films have done.

QUESTION: We were talking to the dialect coach and she was mentioning that the Barsoom language was concocted the same way Na’vi was.

STANTON: Well, one of my producers, Colin Wilson, was one of my producers on “Avatar”. He had a connection to the same dialect coach. I was a little nervous about it, because I didn’t want to be ripping off or stealing or anything like that.

QUESTION: Are you worried about people making the comparison?

STANTON: Well, there’s nothing we can do. That thing was on reels for a long, long time, but this book has been around for 100 years, I just want to see it. I’ve had the same pressure with other films I’ve had to make. “Oh no, someone else is making one just like it!” All that stuff. It all lasts for about three months — it used to be six — and it cycles before nobody gives a crap. It’s about “is it a good movie and am I going to pull it off the shelf and watch it again?” I’m in it for the grandkids and I always am. I’m not in it for the short term. I’m in it for who might watch it after all the B.S. about box office and anything else controversial that can be created goes away. And it goes away almost faster than you can say it now. It’s not worth getting caught up in. I’ve got a book that has held the test of time and I’m going to make a great movie out of it and hope it sails.

There's tons more over at the source so be sure to visit Collider for the full interview transcript.

Running Time: 2 hours and 3 minutes
Release Date: 9 March 2012 (USA)
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action
Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Thomas Haden Church and Willem Dafoe
Directed By:Andrew Stanton
Written by: Andrew Stanton (screenplay), Mark Andrews (screenplay, )Michael Chabon (screenplay) and Edgar Rice Burroughs (story "A Princess of Mars")

John Carter is a 2012 Disney-made epic science fiction film featuring John Carter, the heroic protagonist of Edgar Rice Burroughs' 11-volume Barsoom series. The film marks the centennial of the character's first appearance in 1912.

Former Confederate captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) is mysteriously transported to Mars ("Barsoom") where he becomes part of a conflict between the various nations of the planet, whose leaders include Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). Carter takes it upon himself to save Barsoom and its people.

The film is the live-action debut of director/writer Andrew Stanton and is co-written by Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon. It is produced by Jim Morris, Colin Wilson, and Lindsey Collins, and scored by Michael Giacchino.

The film is being distributed by Walt Disney Pictures and will be released in the United States on March 9, 2012. Filming began in November 2009 and principal photography spanned from January 2010 to July 2010. This project marks the first time that Andrew Stanton has worked on a live-action film, as his previous work includes the Pixar animated films Finding Nemo and WALL-E. The film will be released in Digital 3D and IMAX 3D formats.

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4 Comments

WolvieCBM - 2/9/2012, 11:43 AM

FYI, the $700M mark is a dumb rumor that NY Mag reporter made up. Stanton never said that.

PaulRom - 2/9/2012, 1:25 PM

Yeah the &700M thing is just a debunked rumor.

“@PaulRomCBM: Is it true that JC needs $700 mil+ at the BO to get a sequel?” Nope. U'll get farther in life not believing everything u read.
— andrew stanton (@andrewstanton) January 20, 2012

pro346 - 2/9/2012, 1:48 PM

Looks better than the avengers

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