‘Brave’ Director Mark Andrews Boards ‘John Carter, Warlord of Mars’ Animated Series
Barsoom is finally getting another shot at the screen—and this time, it’s taking flight through animation. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. has officially announced that Academy Award-winning filmmaker Mark Andrews (Brave) has joined the upcoming John Carter, Warlord of Mars: The Animated Series as supervising director and co-showrunner.
Andrews will helm the adaptation alongside co-showrunner and head writer Michael Kogge, who previously developed the project and penned an official John Carter audio series. The creative team is giving fans their first major look at the project during a dedicated San Diego Comic-Con panel.
Returning to the Red Planet
For Mark Andrews, stepping back into Edgar Rice Burroughs’ universe is a homecoming of sorts. In addition to directing Pixar’s Brave (which won the 2013 Oscar for Best Animated Feature), Andrews previously co-wrote Disney’s 2012 live-action film John Carter alongside Andrew Stanton and Michael Chabon.
While that live-action blockbuster famously struggled at the box office despite its cult following, Andrews believes animation is the ultimate vehicle to capture the sweeping scale and pulp-fantasy hybrid of Burroughs’ original 1912 serialization, A Princess of Mars.
“‘John Carter of Mars’ has influenced my life and my storytelling since I discovered it when I was ten years old,” Andrews shared in a statement. “The concept that Mars is inhabited and is stuck between fantasy and sci-fi inspires me and calls to me just as the red planet called to Carter himself. Animation is the best way to achieve the visual intensity and scope the story demands.”
Over a Century in the Making
While Burroughs’ Barsoom novels laid the foundational DNA for generations of blockbuster sci-fi—influencing everything from Star Wars and Superman to Dune and James Cameron’s Avatar—bringing the text to animation has a surprisingly rocky history.
In the early 1930s, legendary animator Bob Clampett attempted to get a rotoscoped John Carter feature off the ground before Walt Disney Studios famously released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Unfortunately, studio hurdles prevented Clampett’s pioneering vision from ever reaching theaters.
Now, with mature action-animation series like Castlevania and Blood of Zeus proving that intricate fantasy epics can thrive in serialized television formats, the estate believes the timing is finally right.
Wolf Larson, head of the entertainment division at ERB, Inc., praised the new creative pairing: “Bringing Mark Andrews and Michael Kogge together for ‘John Carter, Warlord of Mars’ feels a little like destiny. They don’t just understand Burroughs’s version of Mars—they understand why his hero has inspired so many storytellers.”
Production details, animation styles, and casting information have yet to be officially unveiled, but the creative team is diving deep into the production roadmap following their convention debut.
