Casting Comments

[johncarter]

What does everyone think about the current line up of actor/actresses cast for the movie?

So far, we've got:

Taylor Kitsch as John Carter,
Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris,
Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas
Samantha Morton as Sola
Dominic West as Sab Than,
Polly Walker as Sarkoja
Thomas Haden Church as Tal Hajus,
James Purefoy as Kantos Kan
Mark Strong as Matai Shang
Daryl Sabara as Edgar Rice Burroughs
Ciaran Hinds as Tardos Mors

A very interesting line up. I can't wait to see what they do in makeup and effects... it's gonna be surreal for sure.

[johncarter]

What's the deal with Daryl Sabara as young ERB? I'm sorry, but thanks to my daughters' television viewing preferences, I can't stop thinking of him as TJ, the school friend who is also a wizard on "Wizards of Waverly Place" that keeps saying "Oh Yeah? Well, i'll show you _____ " (fill blank with appropriate subject matter)



FYI: At a younger age, he was also Junie in Spy Kids.

-Mike

[steve_w]

My parents first introduced me to ERB way back in the 70's when I was in 5th grade. Over the years I have always wished someone would make a movie about John Carter of Mars and I have always tried to picture which actors would be the best match for the different characters. I have never been able to decide on any of the characters until a few years ago.

I believe the perfect choice for Dejah Thoris would be Halle Berry. If memory serves me correctly Dejah Thoris was described as having an almond shaped face (which Halle has). Not to mention there is a certain amount of "Regal bearing" that is supposed to be associated with Dejah Thoris (she is a princess after all) and I believe Halle Berry could pull it off. Not to mention the "coppery colored" skin tone the red martians are supposed to have.

Here are my other choices for main characters...
John Carter - Christian Bale
Tars Tarkas - CGI (Voiced by Morgan Freeman or James Earl Jones)
Kantos Kan - Heath Ledger - if he was still around
I've made no other choices for the other characters.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

[Bigmatt]

I think the casting is pretty good Kitsch is a solid choice as Carter although I agree 100% with Steve W I have always thought Christan Bale was the perfect choice for Carter. I also think Lynn Collins is a sound choice for Dejah Thoris she was decent in Wolverine but you could see much more of her acting skills as well other things in her run on True Blood. Overall I'm pretty pleased with the choices.

[Tikbalang]

Kitsch is too young and Collins is too old. John Carter should be age 35 and Dejah Thoris about 18.

[johncarter]

I gotta agree with you on both points...

I got the impression from the books that he'd be around 30 as well, and dejah would be early 20s...

I think the rationale is that they since they were planning to do the entire franchise, you'd better start with a young actor so he can more or less hit the average target age throughout the entire run as JC isn't supposed to age (he's virtually timeless in the books).

They apparently didn't care much about that rationale with Collins though. Holy cow... she's gonna be positively ancient at the end of the series. Martians supposedly also have very long lifespans, so she wasn't supposed to age much either... who knows that they were thinking with her... the only thing I can guess is they wanted someone that could pull off the whole "regal" thing with the acting chops to give it some authority. You don't want some ditzy blond in the role that looks nice, but is a hollow actress, so they probably went with an older one for the experience.

Or they just got a great two-for-one deal by hitting up the X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie people... sort of a "Well, you can have Hugh Jackman for $$$, or for the same price, you can have both Kitsch and Collins! Heh heh... that's a joke of course...

-Mike

[Tikbalang]

Not to do with casting but every fan's fear is that the movie will deviate from the book and fail. Good news is I think even Hollywood couldn't screw up this story. The plot is a love story: boy meets girl and looses girl - boy tries to get girl back and fails - boy tries again and succeeds. How can you fail that? The rest of the story is a chase scene all over Mars. There's nothing complicated here. Of course the special effects could also make or break the film. The flora and fauna of Barsoom have to be as good as Avatar. I think the key special effect will be the flyers. (That's what the things I imagined as surf boards with windshields were called, right?) Once again, that's been done before. My hopes are high!

[Spaceman Spiff]

John Carter--Thomas Gibson Of Dharma and Greg fame.
Deja Thoris--Morena Baccarin From the Firefly TV series, BEFORE she cut her hair for the V remake! Or maybe Megan Fox if she wasn't so full of herself.

I never really thought about an actor for Tars Tarkas Since it would mainly, I thought, be voice work looks wouldn't be much of a factor. Just find someone who is experienced in voice work and has distinctive enough voice. Maybe Brian Blessed or John Rhys-Davies. I like the idea that they have Burroughs as a character. It seems to imply that they will have a framing sequence like the book does where the story is being told to him by 'Uncle Jack'. Although Daryl Sabara seems kind of young for the part. I would have chosen someone like Johnny Galecki who plays Leonard on Big Bang Theory.

[RaithGyaron]

I've always liked John Dumhel as John Carter, he was Robert Rodriguez's choice. I wouldn't have minded Jon Faverou's pick of Eric Bana. I think I thought of Morena Baccarin at one point but I wouldn't choose Megan Fox, maybe for Thuvia, but not Dejah Thoris. As for the great Thark, I always liked Keith David.