Two X-mutants are heading to Mars!

Taylor Kitsch who played Gambit along with Lynn Collins who played Silver Fox in last month’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine have both been added to the cast of the upcoming John Carter of Mars film adaptation based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ series of novels.

It looks like playing Gambit was the young Canadian actor’s breakthrough performance as it helped land him the title role in this big budget film (and possible trilogy). Collins will be playing Dejah Thoris, the damsel in distress and heir to the throne of Mars’ Helium kingdom. She is of course the love interest of John Carter.

Directing the film is Andrew Stanton who will be making his debut into live-action with this project. The film will be absolutely littered with CGI effects to bring to life the various creatures depicted in the stories so he won’t be straying too far off the track he set with Wall-E and Finding Nemo.

The film will be rated PG-13 and is hoped to kick off a franchise of blockbusters similar to the size and scale of Pirates of the Caribbean. If this is a success (which I hope it is) Taylor will be hitting it big time and it will help build him a hefty profile which may lead to him getting that Gambit solo film that's been widely speculated for some time. Up until this point, that film was the least likely of the potential spin-off films by Fox Studios because of Taylor not being very well-known or bankable as of yet. That looks to be changing with this news.

The last we heard on the John Carter of Mars film project prior to today was that screenwriter and novelist Michael Chabon had been hired to help do some revisions on the “already strong script.” With major casting announcements confirmed today, we can expect to see some more major movement on this project and maybe some updates at next month’s Comic-Con. For more information on the film and what the director had to say about it back in January, check out our article on Andrew Stanton discussing the project.

John Carter of Mars will likely open in 2012 and is set to start filming this November.

Source: THR