A bearded Taylor Kitsch goes up against a scraggly-haired Bryan Cranston in a new 10-minute clip from Disney and Andrew Stanton’s John Carter.
Disney has been releasing John Carter footage via clips, trailers, tv spots and the like over the past several months with the conscious decision to keep the film’s 1868 Earth portion out of it, instead focusing on the CGI-heavy Mars conflict. The fear was audiences not familiar with the 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs novel A Princess of Mars from which the film is based would think John Carter is a period film, which is anything but the case.
In this extended clip, Disney is aiming right for the Edgar Rice Burroughs fans and keeping it entirely on Earth. We get to meet Kitsch as captain John Carter and Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston as Colonel Powell, a man Carter introduces himself to with a well-placed head butt.
As with any clip designed to get you into the theater, this one ends in a cliffhanger as John Carter looks up toward something in the sky, something that chased off the Indians pursuing him and an injured Colonel Powell. It’s annoying to sit through 10 minutes of something and not get the payoff, but that’s the idea, right?
Disney is reported to have spent $250 million in production costs on John Carter and cannot afford another big budget bomb like last year’s Mars Needs Moms. This past weekend’s The Lorax proves moviegoers are willing to put their money where entertainment is. The big question is if John Carter
John Carter starring Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, Thomas Haden Church, Bryan Cranston, Samantha Morton, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Ciaran Hinds and Polly Walker opens in 3D and 2D this upcoming Friday, March 9.
