Cinefantastique Online

Ain’t It Cool News follows up on trade paper reports that Robert Rodriguez has signed a deal to direct a film version of Edgar Rice Burrough’s novel Princess of Mars, scripted by Mark Protosevich:

First of all, am I allowed to say how happy I am that Robert is not writing this film? [...]

This time out, he’s working from a script by Mark Protosevich, and despite my on-the-record hatred for THE CELL, I think this guy’s got the goods. His I AM LEGEND script is one of the most highly-regarded unfilmed scripts in recent Hollywood memory for a good reason. It’s epic and personal at the same time, and it does a hell of a job of turning a familiar piece of material into something fresh.

And what I’m hearing about this script is that he did the impossible and really brought the Edgar Rice Burroughs original up to modern standards, dramatically. Burroughs was a great pulp writer, but A PRINCESS OF MARS was the first novel he ever published, and even though it’s obviously powered by a huge imagination, it’s not his best book. It’s always been one of those properties that was ripe with potential, and filmmakers have tried desperately to crack the thing and bring it to the screen.