Local Utah news station KLS is reporting that Pixar’s foray into the world of live action, an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough’s John Carter of Mars, will be shooting in Utah this fall. That doesn’t mean that John Carter will have multiple wives or attend an indie film festival, but it could mean that Pixar intends to do less green screen then we might have thought.
After all, Utah is home to some of the most unearthly geography on Earth. Monument Valley, which it shares with Arizona, became famous in the films of John Ford; it’s buttes and columns truly look like an alien landscape, and the reddish sands call to mind Mars (or as the Martians call it, Barsoom). Zion National Park also offers incredible scenery, better than anything the CGI masters at Pixar could come up with, as does the Arches National Park. Then there’s Moab. Essentially Utah is Mars.
Utah story via Slashfilm.
Meanwhile, Coming Soon is reporting that Lynn Collins, who played Wolverine’s girlfriend in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, has signed on to John Carter of Mars. Or at least her Twitter feed gives that impression. I wasn’t that impressed with her acting in Wolverine, but looks-wise she’d make a great Deja Thoris, the Martian Queen.