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A ripple went through the sci-fi fan base this week when director Andrew Stanton announced at a roundtable discussion in Toronto that he is currently writing the film adaptation for John Carter of Mars for Pixar.

There are several significant effects of this story…

First, all those fans who have been eagerly awaiting Edgar Rice Burroughs’ second-most-famous character to come to life on the big screen will finally see their dreams realized. This project has been passed around to more directors than Lindsay Lohan and a bag of coke at an Oscar party. It originated with Robert Rodriguez in 2004 but fell apart due to Rodriguez’s non-existent membership in the DGA.

After Rodriguez left, Kerry Conran from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow fame was tapped to direct. When Conran fell through (which is a relief… I mean, did you see what a mess Sky Captain was?), Jon Favreau was given the controls. Of course, that pre-dated Zathura and far predated the Iron Man commitments that Favreau now has. Now, the film’s in Stanton’s lap… at least the writing part is.

The second – and possibly more interesting part – is that this film has fallen into the hands of Pixar and the Walt Disney Company. While Walt Disney has been hit-and-miss with wide-demographic non-children’s movies (great with Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure, but not so much with The Haunted Mansion, for example), this would be Pixar’s first film that won’t be pigeon-holed into a kids movie.

After dominating the animated film realm over the last decade and then some, Pixar might be in a position to turn their incredible filmmaking prowess to the regular mainstream market.

We’ll have to see how WALL-E pans out over the next month, and if it’s a success, Stanton should be able to write his own ticket. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that he’ll be able to write a good script for the launch of the John Carter series.

Source: The Pixar Blog