Once Upon A Time on Mars

Having completed two trilogies last year with the final installments in the Spy Kids and El Mariachi series, Robert Rodriguez obviously felt lacking in challenges. No longer, however, for when he finishes Sin City he will tackle A Princess of Mars. The story is a sci-fi classic written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan, in 1912. It tells the story of John Carter, an American Civil War veteran and gold prospector who takes refuge in a cave to hide from hostile Indians, and wakes up to find himself on another planet. This is no dry landscape dotted with the wreckage of Mars probes, but a fantasy world full of weird wildlife, tall green barbarians and (of course) beautiful damsels in distress. Cue derring-do, romance, rescues, escapes and epic battles. The film may be called John Carter of Mars, the name given to the series of eleven books which Burroughs went on to write