If Pixar wanted to convince me that they weren’t doing John Carter of Mars as some kitschy kiddie movie (not that it should be some sort of hardcore gritfest, either. It needs to be the perfect pulp balance of fun and self-seriousness), they couldn’t have done any better than hire Michael Chabon to take a crack at the script. And they’ve done just that.
The information hit last week (we actually had someone send us a scoop email about it, but it got lost in the shuffle and I’m sorry I’m just not that good at this job), and it’s been confirmed by Chabon himself, who tells fansite The Amazing Website of Kavalier and Klay
“I’ve been hired to do some revisions to an already strong script by
Andrew Stanton and Mark Andrews,” Chabon said. “I wrote my original
screenplay The Martian Agent back in 1995 because I wished I could do
[Edgar Rice] Burroughs’s Barsoom. So this is pretty much a dream come
true for me.”
I’m psyched. As a fan of Chabon’s work beyond Kavalier and Klay (including his mostly unused draft of Spider-Man 2), I think he’s an inspired choice for rewriting chores. Now if somebody would just get Jonathan Lethem on a script.