In March 2012, Disney attempted to launch a new franchise with the sci-fi action adventure story John Carter, which starred Taylor Kitsch in the title role. On paper, John Carter had a lot going for it. It was an adventure story in the pulpy adventure style of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and based on an existing property — namely, the novel A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burrows, who is perhaps best known for creating the character of Tarzan.
Alas, it was not to be. Though the film, directed by Andrew Stanton, was a lot of fun and it did gross $284 million at the box office, it was written off as a failure and the planned sequels were scrapped. That’s not to say that Stanton did not have plans of his own for the sequels, as he revealed at the “Directors on Directing” panel at San Diego Comic Con, hosted by Collider’s own Steve Weintraub.
Stanton said the second film would have been titled Gods of Mars, something he also mentioned back in March, and the third would have been Warlord of Mars. Stanton also shared some concept art and maps with the crowd lucky enough to be in Hall H, along with the plots for both films.
Gods of Mars, he said, would have taken place after John Carter returned to Mars after 10 years away:
"John Carter was on Earth for 10 years. His wife Dejah had their baby while he was gone, gets kidnapped by the villain Matai Shang. Carter arrives back on Mars to discover Dejah has gone back down the river, convinced it will lead her to the Thurns and their stolen child. Carter reunites with Tars Tarkas, Willem Dafoe's character, they follow her down the river when they discover an underground city with complete modern technology run by a race called the Firstborn. And they're technologically advanced beyond here or Mars. And they've been managing the planets existence since the beginning: water, air, food, plants that eat you. And they're also zealots that worship the Goddess Isis who exists in person. But this Goddess is actually our shapeshifting villain Matai Shang — that's his day job. And as you might expect, Carter will reveal Matai has a false god to the Firstborn, track down his son who turned out to be this superhuman warrior that was ordered to kill Carter. Matai had genetically advanced the baby to an adult age, and [Carter] nearly kills his own son. And all this comes to a climax. As the helium air fleet [...] descend down a dormant volcano to rescue our heroes. And Carter, Dejah, and his manchild son are reunited. And the three races the Red, the Green, and the Firstborn are now chasing the Thurns out of there."
With Warlord of Mars, he said the Therns would be on the run to the Northern Hemisphere of the planet where the copies of their bodies are stores, and where they will begin the process of evacuating to Earth while making Mars unlivable. Stanton continued:
"It's a giant ticking clock and the world will end if Carter can't track down the Therns and kill them before they kill the planet. So to buy themselves time, these shapeshifting Thurn spies keep posing as leaders of other Martian races and cause infighting and chaos much like Putin and the bots right now, and Martians are too busy fighting themselves to focus on uniting and eradicating the Therns.Meanwhile scientist Dejah has invented a device to detect these Thurns, but the spies destroy it, and they assassinate Carter, and that's when we remind the audience that it was just a copy, his original body wakes up on Earth. There's Thurn Pinkertons there, they're ready to kill him, but Edgar bought a shotgun and he uses it correctly and kills him, Carter returns to Mars but keeps his existence a secret and while the threat of the World War rises on, him his wife and his son with their one surviving Thurn detector prototype go up to the top of the world following the Thurn trail where he finally faces off with our villain Matai Shang. And of course, as you would expect, he stops the Thurns, saves the planet and is given the official title Warlord of Mars."
Obviously, the intent was that if the first film was a success, Stanton would be allowed to lean more into the science fiction of it all. He famously wanted to title the original film John Carter of Mars, but was forced to drop the second half of the title, which led to some confusion among audiences as to what the movie was about.
Apart from John Carter, Stanton is best known for his extensive work at Pixar, where he directed Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, and WALL-E. He is also responsible for co-writing the four Toy Story films and A Bug’s Life, which he also co-directed. In the live action realm, he has directed on Stranger Things and Better Call Saul, and he also penned the final two episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi, finding his way back to the world of desert-set sci-fi at last.
John Carter is streaming on Disney+ now. You can check out the trailer below: