Director Andrew Stanton is currently finishing the CGI animation portion of his live-action Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptation John Carter, which is set to debut March 9th of 2012. He has released two Martian Landscape Concept art photos, which you can check out below along with further details on this extravagant sci-fi epic, and the reasons why Andrew Stanton won't be bringing John Carter to Comic-Con 2011.
Andrew Stanton had this to say about the look of his Martian planet and its inhabitants in John Carter.
"I kept using the word "authentic" when I was out on set or doing art in development. I just wanted things to look like they had been through weather and use. I wanted things to look beat-up and old. This may sound weird, but I was always so impressed by the Monty Python films and Terry Gilliam's sense of production value. Things really felt like they had been through the mud. And if you look at most historical films, for a little too long they always gave us things that looked a little too clean. People on my set could not distress things enough for me. Everything was pre-industrial; I wanted it to look made by hand. I wanted the pre-revolution days of Mars to look like tall ships on the skyline. And to get that to come across through the lens and then up on the screen, you just couldn't beat stuff up enough. I remember once we had this great big deck gun and my weapons guy made this beautiful object. In his mind it looks weathered but I stepped back about 20 feet and said from here it looks brand new. I told him he should go take an ax to it and get it some really big nicks to it. He said, "You're kidding me?" But he did it, he took the ax to it, he wouldn't let anybody else do it to his baby. But that's how we wanted everything, dirty, used, distressed and, hopefully, historical."
Why won't we be seeing John Carter at Comic-Con 2011?
"I think what it was is the perception that it's getting harder and harder to stand out amid the din. We're going to do our special event to get some focus and separation. I know some people will read that as a sign that we're unsure of our property. It's just the opposite. We want to control how and what is being seen and the way it is presented. So much stuff now is just spit out so fast and the churn of it all. You almost gain nothing by talking about things really early in this day and age. I think in the future we might see things arrive the way Prince announces a concert where a few days before the show he announces it and tickets just go up. You might see that with movies and other things. That seems like the only way to get people interested and then capitalize off that interest."
To read more about John Carter, CLICK HERE