Pixar's live action "John Carter of Mars" is a go

Disney’s John Carter of Mars is seemingly moving ahead full-throttle.

Several major casting announcements have given the once doubtful-looking project new credibility. Taylor Kitsch, “Gambit” in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, plays the title character, a Civil War veteran who finds himself transported to the even more dangerous planet Mars. Kitsch has also been seen in the TV show Friday Night Lights, as well as the movies Snakes on a Plane and John Tucker Must Die! Willem Dafoe has signed to play Martian warrior Tars Tarkas. Other recent cast additions include Dominic West, Samantha Morton and Polly Walker. Thomas Hayden Church also joins Lynn Collins, who co-starred with Kitsch in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Pixar director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-e) makes his live-action directorial debut. The script is by Stanton, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Michael Chabon and Mark Andrews.

John Carter of Mars is based on a series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Tarzan novels. Tarzan is currently being developed (again) for the big screen, this time by GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra director Stephen Sommers.

Interest in filming the Burroughs fantasy/science fiction series has flared up periodically for decades. Looney Toons director Bob Clampett expressed interest in making an animated feature based on John Carter of Mars in the thirties but was unable to convince backers the idea was viable. A few years later, Walt Disney produced Snow White. Stop motion animation guru Ray Harryhausen wanted to make the project in the fifties, and John McTiernan reportedly made a stab at it in the eighties.

John Carter of Mars is currently projected to be released in 2012.