Not long after the announcement that Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins were cast in the lead roles in the upcoming adaptation of John Carter of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ series of novels, we found out the talented Willem Dafoe would be playing an important character in the film(s) as well.

At the time, we knew that Dafoe would be playing the role of Tars Tarkas, a big green Martian who eventually befriends the Kitsch’s John Carter, after an unfriendly beginning to their relationship. Tarkas is a warrior and leader of his people and a very unique one at that because he, against the laws and norms of his society, shows compassion and sympathy, and even had a child secretly with the woman he loved (child bearing is a major criminal offense of his people) – he actually believes war isn’t the answer for his kind.

Dafoe spoke recently about the early stages of development for the production and his character – check it out after the jump.

The Disney adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ series of novels, John Carter of Mars, and hopeful trilogy of films said to be comparable in scale to Pirates of the Caribbean, has added another three major members to its cast.

If you’re excited about this project already then you should be ecstatic to hear that Mark Strong, James Purefoy and Thomas Haden Church have all signed on for the film.

Let’s go through the cast members we know of so far…

The cast of Disney’s big-screen adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars keeps on growing, adding three English (read: talented) actors to the roster. Joining John Carter of Mars will be Dominic West (The Wire, 300), Samantha Morton (In America) and Polly Walker (HBO’s Rome).

The three English actors join Willem DaFoe, (supposedly) Thomas Hayden Church and Wolverine stars Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins (Gambit and Silver Fox), who will be playing lead characters John Carter and his love interest, Mars princess Dejah Thoris.

Another casting announcement for the upcoming film adaptation of John Carter of Mars was released today, adding Willem Dafoe’s name to the cast.

Last month we heard the first big casting decisions for the movie which included Canadian actor Taylor Kitsch alongside Lynn Collins (both of whom were a part of X-Men Origins: Wolverine earlier this summer) as the leads.

Shortly after that, Thomas Haden Church openly revealed in a video interview that he’d probably be playing a “very dramatic role” in John Carter of Mars which has yet to be confirmed.

It’s just your average Marvel character party this week. Sandman, Gambit and Silver Fox who were featured in Spider-Man 3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine respectively will probably be hanging out on Mars come November.

It appears that Thomas Haden Church will likely be playing a part in John Carter of Mars, the upcoming film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic series of science fiction novels. If confirmed, Church will be joining Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins who were just announced to be playing the lead roles in the movie.

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.

In this Weeks spell check busting installment: Matthew McConaughey is an Exchange Student; Heffalump writer Spiliotopoulos will write Bekmambetov’s Wanted 2 – will Angelina Jolie be involved? Megan Fox is Crossing over; John Carter of Mars is Chabon and which one of the Watchmen has Morning Glory for Star Trek’s Abram?

Way back in the summer of last year, Screen Rant reported (as an update) that the project John Carter of Mars wasn’t likely to start getting made for a long time, since at that time they hadn’t even decided on what form it would take – animation, live-action or a mixture of both.

But things seem to now be steamrolling ahead as WALL-E director Andrew Stanton revealed in a recent interview with SciFi Wire.

I hope that you are not holding your breath for the upcoming adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars. The reason – well they won’t even know if the film will be live action, animated or a mixture of both techniques for another year!

Andrew Stanton, the writer-director of the upcoming Wall-E says:

“Everybody’s asking that, and we are not going to make that decision for about a year.”

Man, how long has this thing been in development?

Robert Rodriguez, John Favreau and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow’s Kerry Conran have all been attached to direct the film that would follow the adventures of John Carter, a Civil War hero who becomes transported to Mars.

Gee, I always wondered why they called it John Carter of Mars!

Will this film ever be made?

[UPDATE: Disney has notified us that they do indeed plan on bringing ALL the remaining Chronicles of Narnia movies to the big screen. According to them the source on this is completely wrong. - Vic]

We knew it was in development. But according to our buddies at Jim Hill Media, Disney and Pixar are moving forward with a film-trilogy based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series for 2012 at the earliest… if not sooner than that.

Mark Andrews (Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Ratatouille) has already written a draft that both Disney and Pixar executives went bonkers over; crazy enough that they’re seriously wanting this to become their next big franchise instead of adapting all seven Chronicles of Narnia books(!?!)

The second Narnia installment Prince Caspian will open this coming May with the third outing, and Voyage of the Dawn Treader slated for a May 2010 release. Beyond that, there are no current plans to bring the remaining four novels to the silver screen. In fact, Dawn Treader might even be in jeopardy unless Caspian does killer box-office.

A guy just can’t take a vacation around here… leave for a few days and ya miss a boatload of movie news. So here’s a quick summary of a few items worth noting:

- Yahoo! Movies has a trailer up for Slipstream, a time travel movie directed by and starring Anthony Hopkins. It looks interesting but I’ll be damned if I can tell what the story is from the trailer. Maybe that’s the point…

- It seems that Brett Ratner will be directing the remake of Escape from New York. Uh oh.

- Vin Diesel as the Terminator directed by McG? I suppose that half of that is good news… And sorry, I just wasn’t in the mood to do one of those half Terminator/half Vin Diesel photoshop jobs that everyone else has attached to this story.