Since the success of Avatar, studios are willing to offer escapist fare that has humans escaping our planet.  24 Frames reports that producer John Davis (Alien vs. Predator and I, Robot) has optioned the film rights to author Ray Bradbury's classic collection of science fiction short-stories The Martian Chronicles.  The 1950 book is an interlinking series of adventures that takes place after humans have escaped a devastated Earth and landed on an already-populated Mars.  Bradbury was optimistic about our chances of reaching the red planet since he set the book in the year 2000 and 2005.  He was also optimistic that humans would continue pursuing space exploration and not fall victim to our short attention spans.

It will be interesting to see if Davis will push this into production or if he'll wait to see if audiences are still interested in life on Mars after seeing Andrew Stanton's John Carter of Mars in 2012.