John Carter 100 years in the making

Original Publication- By ERB

1911
Under the Moons of Mars sold for $400 under the name "Norman Bean."

1911-1915
First Three books written, Princess of Mars, Gods of Mars and Warlord of Mars.

1918 - Tarzan makes it to film but not his older brother:

Tarzan, because of the low cost and easy access to Earth animals from Africa, has been made into films every generation since his first publication, the first in 1918, starring Elmo Lincoln as Tarzan. Jump to the end for the wikipedia link on the media history of this jungle lord.

In 1918 the first Tarzan silent film

1930's Early attempts At a John Carter film:


The first adaptation of, Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter of Mars series began in 1931 with Looney Tunes director Bob Clampett. Clampett approached Edgar Rice Burroughs with the idea of adapting A Princess of Mars into a feature-length animated film. Burroughs was receptive to the idea, due to the obvious limitations a live action film might have. So work began on a six minute proof of concept, which finally completed in 1936. -Youtube Description

1936 test footage by Bob Clampett

1950's 
Ray Harryhausen expressed interest in making a film. He is best known for his stop-motion Mighty Joe Young, Jason and the Argonauts and for his work on the 1980's Clash of the Titans. There will be more written on what this could have looked like in a following post. This would have looked magical, and at the same time realistic by 1950's standards. Today stop motion is mostly used in cartoons and wouldn't be very impressive. (I would still like it.)

Ray Harryhausen with  his creations,  and Medusa

Comic Adaptations 
From the 1940s through the 1980's John Carter would never get a chance at the big screen but he would hit the Sunday funnies and have a limited run on comic book stand. Many times he would appear under the name of his younger brother Tarzan, but at least the Marvel mini-series adaptation got recognized by future Pixar director Andrew Stanton. He tells about it in this short documentary John Carter: 100 Years in the Making. Jump to the end to watch it embedded.

1980s-1990s

ROTJ- Looks like Barsoom to me,
must be Barsoom. 

The success of Star Wars(1977)  had  studios scrambling  trying to find their next big Sci-fi flick. The original BattleStar Galactica (watch both seasons free online nbc.com) was so similar to Star Wars that there was a lawsuit between the studios.  Blackhole (1979) was released by Disney and did moderately well, and The Last Starfighter (1984) seems to be very similar to Star Wars: A New Hope. But it goes both ways, Return of the Jedi was almost straight from a John Carter novel, all except the star battles at the end. Even Endor with its tree villages are probably from Edgar Rice Burrough's other series- Carson of Venus. Dejah's, I mean Leia's slave outfit, a metal bikini clearly inspired by the 1970's John Carter comics.

These other movies by Disney never out did Star Wars however and left Disney looking for a bigger franchise. Disney needed  the original pulp fiction hero: John Carter. The story is long how many directors and version of the scripts that the movie adaptation of A Princess of Mars had, but most importantly it featured Tom Cruise, the hunk from Top Gun, and Julia Roberts as Dejah Thoris. This also will be in an other post specifically about this period.  Needless to say, this film also did not see the light of day. (Future Link will be here.)

Julia Roberts- the Dejah Thoris that never was

1990: sexiest man alive= John Carter

2000's Paramount Tries; Where others had failed
To keep a long story short, several directors tried to get the film off the ground at Paramount. Robert Rodriguez (Sin City) was set to direct the film in 2005 and film it on greenscreen similar to his Sin City. He left after disputes with the director's guild.  Kerry Conran (director of Sky Pilot and the World of Tomorrow) picked it up and then left for unknown reasons, ultimately Jon Favreau (Iron Man) was set to direct with Mark Fergus to re-write the script closer to the original story, "keeping John Carter's American Civil War past and making the Martian Tharks fifteen feet tall (whereas other scripts made them human sized). Favreau explained a modern soldier would not know how to fence or ride a horse like Carter. The first film would have adapted the first three novels, A Princess of Mars, The Gods of Mars and The Warlord of Mars. Unlike Rodriguez and Conran, Favreau preferred using practical effects for the film and cited Planet of the Apes as his inspiration, wanting to use make-up as well as CGI to create the Martian Tharks. However, Favreau's official affiliation with the project was not strong, and in August 2006 Paramount chose not to renew the film rights, preferring to focus on Star Trek. Favreau and Fergus moved on to Iron Man."- Encyclopedia Barsoomia- John Carter (Film)

The Kerry Conran Pitch (set to use the Australian outback for Mars)

2007 Disney Buys the film rights

2009 Avatar inspired by Princess of Mars

“With ‘Avatar,’ I thought, Forget all these chick flicks and do a classic guys’ adventure movie, something in the Edgar Rice Burroughs mold, like John Carter of Mars—a soldier goes to Mars” --James Cameron.

For better or worse Avatar copied the basic story line of John Carter, a soldier goes to an alien planet and falls in love with an alien princess. The planet is full of 6-legged beasts and the soldier goes on to unite the alien tribes. What's more is that the lush scenery was once again most likely taken from Carson of Venus series.
Avatar would influence John Carter's production though, with motion capture technology and completely CGI characters. 

2009 Princess of Mars (low budget adaptation)

Knowing that Avatar was inspired by A Princess of Mars,  Asylum filmed the first adaptation of the book ever. The $200,000 production budget shows, and it's not that great. The CGI is poor, the acting subpar and even the Tharks only had two arms. Two! It's modern day and John Carter gets injured in the middle east in battle and is somehow taken to Mars to be rebuilt. Looks kind of lame. But technically it was the first movie made from the book. Please don't go watch it. (official site)

Tars Tarkas 

Roman Gladiator? Nope, John Carter. 

2009 John Carter of Mars announced again by Disney

March 2012: The long wait is over

Taylor Kitsch 

John Carter is finally released as a feature film, after 100 years! Audiences liked it, the critics were divided;  Due to a bad marketing campaign it wasn't clear that this was the inspiration for Star Wars, Avatar and more. Was it really a flop though? Read my post:  Was "John Carter" the biggest flop in 2012? for a more detailed review of what happened. All the Burroughs fans I have talked to personally LOVED IT. But to be fair some were expecting more. It took 100 years to get to the screen and only 10 days to kill it. Even still most people are confused by the trailers and movie critic schadenfreude to give it a chance. If you haven't seen it, it's on STARZ channel and on itunes. 

John Carter: 100 Years in the Making

December 2012

Disney buys the rights to Star Wars.  If you can't beat them, join them. (Or buy them out for 4 billion dollars and make it your franchise anyway.) 

George Lucas signing away his baby to Disney

Interested in the play-by-play of bringing John Carter to the big-screen? I read a book over the holidays entitled: John Carter and the God's of Hollywood  by Michael D. Sellers and he painstakingly goes through many of these details and more; including how the film's marketing fell short. Very great read for all who want to really boil down cinema. You can't get much better than that. Thanks Michael!
 You can buy his ebook for $3.99 over on Amazon. I recommend it! http://amzn.to/YFFXJ2














sources:
youtube 1936 footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr9dClaSw7Q
tarzan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarzan_in_film_and_other_non-print_media
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_goodyear#ixzz2Hd40mhR2
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/10/30/disney-star-wars-lucasfilm/1669739/
http://www.nbc.com/classic-tv/battlestar-galactica/video/
http://www.theasylum.cc/product.php?id=163
http://www.starz.com/titles/johncarter
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/john-carter/id508656568
http://www.amazon.com/John-Carter-Gods-Hollywood-ebook/dp/B00AFCZ1S4/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1359604493&sr=8-1