Director Andrew Stanton shares that the sequels to the novel-adapted film are already underway, saying, 'We've been planning out all three all along, just on the chance that they do go ahead.'
- Dec 7, 2011
AceShowbiz - While "John Carter" is still months away from hitting U.S. theaters, director Andrew Stanton revealed that he's already planned sequels for the sci-fi movie. While introducing some clips of the film in London recently, Stanton shared that he's been doing the groundwork for the second and third films in the series.
"We bought the rights to the first three books when we first started. I thought, let's see it off right because you never get time back," so Stanton said as quoted by Bleeding Cool. "The worse case scenario is that you'll plan for more but only make one. But what I'd hate is that you'd plan for one with no preparation for the others, because it'll show. It'll really bite you in the back end."
The "Wall-E" director further explained, "I never expected anyone to say we'd definitely do more than one. It's a huge risk for them...and it's a huge chunk of change to make any of these movies, something this big. So it made complete sense to me, from their side of the fence, to wait until the movie's out."
"So if the worst is that it was just a writing exercise for me to plan the others and then I never get to do them, I don't think I'll have any regrets. So we've been planning out all three all along, just on the chance that they do go ahead," he claimed. "My fan wish is that we'll go to all eleven stories and make more."
During the press conference, Stanton also explained why he decided to add villainous character Matai Shang in the first "John Carter" film despite the fact that the character does not exist in the first book. "There was no main villain in 'Princess of Mars', and the villain would change every few chapters," he said.
"There's that axiom 'You're only as good as your villain' and I don't know if that's true but I didn't want to find out the hard way. I went to later books and found a villain that did scope over multiple series, and I brought him earlier," the director went on sharing.
Based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic novels, "John Carter" is slated for a March 9, 2012 release in the U.S. The epic war film stars Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, Dominic West, James Purefoy and Mark Strong.
