Summary
- John Carter sequels never happened due to the original film's box office flop, resulting in Disney losing the rights.
- The unrealized story plans for John Carter 2 and 3 focused on complex interstellar conflicts and family reunions on Mars.
- While a John Carter reboot is rumored for Disney+, the original film's potential for sequels remains unexplored.
Disney's 2012 John Carter movie was initially supposed to be a movie trilogy, but the sequels never happened — here is everything we know about John Carter 2 and 3's unrealized story plans. With Toy Story's Andrew Stanton at its helm, Disney's John Carter movie adapts Edgar Rice Burroughs' pulpy sci-fi novel, A Princess of Mars. The movie does an incredible job at building a rich, mythology-fueled interstellar world where a brooding cosmic conflict becomes the backdrop of romantic developments and promising CGI-fueled action scenes.
John Carter centers on a titular Civil War veteran who mysteriously finds himself on Mars. As he explores the planet's desolate surface, he soon comes across strange creatures and also learns he possesses the ability to defy Mars' gravity and make giant leaps in the air. The original Edgar Rice novels offer an abundance of source material for at least two more sequels, and the 2012 movie ended with an intriguing cliffhanger. However, while Andrew Stanton had plans for a John Carter trilogy, the follow-ups never saw the light of the day. Given its potential scalability, it is hard not to wonder what went wrong with Disney's John Carter.
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Everything Revealed About John Carter 2's Story
The Sequel Would Have Been Titled "God Of Mars"
As Andrew Stanton revealed (via Collider), John Carter 2 would have been titled Gods of Mars. Just like Willem Dafoe's Tars in the first film, Lynn Collins' Dejah would have narrated the prologue. John Carter 2's story begins with her reciting the events of the first film to her child, Carthoris, who she believes will never know his father John Carter.
Soon after, Ciarán Hinds’ Tardos Mors takes the child from her while assuring her that he will put him to bed. However, he turns out to be Matai Shang (played by Kingsman's Mark Strong) in one of his shapeshifting forms, who kidnaps the child and disappears. With this, the movie's opening credits start rolling, and it begins where the first film ended — John Carter's return to the planet of Barsoom.
In the end, Dejah, Carter, and their son finally reunite, and the three races — the Red, the Green, and the Firstborn — come together to overpower the Therns.
Arriving after a decade since his departure, Carter learns that Dejah has gone down the river, hoping that it will lead her to their abducted child. After joining forces with Tars Tarkas, Carter follows his wife's lead and soon discovers a modern underground city that is ruled by the Firstborn race. It turns out that the Firstborns are devotees of Goddess Isis and have been managing everything from water to air — food to plants — on the planet since its inception.
Realizing that Goddess Isis is another one of shapeshifting Matai's fake identities, Carter sets out to expose him to the Firstborns and rescue his son. John Carter 2's story reaches its crescendo when Carter almost kills his own son, who has been genetically advanced by Matai into an adult superhuman warrior. In the end, Dejah, Carter, and their son finally reunite, and the three races — the Red, the Green, and the Firstborn — come together to overpower the Therns.
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Everything Revealed About John Carter 3's Story
The Trilogy Would Have Ended With "Warlord Of Mars"
John Carter 3, titled Warlord of Mars, follows Carter's race against time to find the Therns who want to demolish the entire planet. To buy time, the Therns use their shapeshifting abilities to pose as leaders of Martian races and manipulate them into fighting one another. Meanwhile, Dejah invents a device to detect the Therns in their shapeshifting disguises, but the Therns stay one step ahead and destroy her device. Soon after, they also kill Taylor Kitsch's John Carter, but little do they realize he is only a copy of the original Carter who wakes up on Earth.
As the threat of a World War looms in the shadows, Carter and his family carry their last remaining Thern detector to the top of the world by following the Thern trial.
Back on Earth, Edgar uses his shotgun to save Carter from Thern Pinkertons and helps him return to Mars. As the threat of a World War looms in the shadows, Carter and his family carry their last remaining Thern detector to the top of the world by following the Thern trial. That's when John runs into Matai and defeats him to ultimately save the planet and rightfully become the titular Warlord of Mars.
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Why John Carter's Sequels Never Happened
2012'S John Carter Was A Huge Financial Loss For Disney
The sequels never happened because John Carter flopped at the box office. Before tax rebates and marketing costs, the movie's production budget was $307 million, which was extremely high compared to its $281 million worldwide collection (via The Wrap). Later, Walt Disney Co. even announced that it expected a loss of $200 million on the film (via LA Times), making John Carter a quintessential big-budget box office failure like Water World. After
John Carter 2 & 3's fate is unfortunate in every sense, but it also serves as a lesson on how seemingly trivial changes in a film's marketing and brand can incur substantial losses.
Disney lost the rights to the property in 2014, all hope for the sequels was lost and Stanton's promising ideas for the sequels remained dormant. John Carter 2 & 3's fate is unfortunate in every sense, but it also serves as a lesson on how seemingly trivial changes in a film's marketing and brand can incur substantial losses.
Disney Has Plans To Reboot John Carter
The Studio Is Going To Have Another Go At Turning The Epic Sci-Fi Into A Franchise
While John Carter was a flop when it released back in 2012, it has been reappraised by many critics and viewers in the decades since. While it does still have some flaws, overall the consensus seems to be that it didn't deserve to be the failure that it was. It seems that — if rumors are to be believed — Disney have noticed this, and in 2023 there were rumblings that the House of Mouse was planning to reboot John Carter with another attempt to turn Edgar Rice Burrows' martian sci-fi adventure into a bankable franchise.
However, while several outlets reported on Disney eyeing up a John Carter reboot in the future, nothing official has come from the studio itself. Still, given the success of the novel, it's not that farfetched to think that Disney could want to revisit the source material. It wouldn't be the first time that a studio, and the live-action remake happy Disney in particular, have turned to an older intellectual property for a new project — a key recent example being the Disney+ Percy Jackson series.
The reported rumors also suggest that, if the John Carter reboot is indeed happening, then it will be as a series for Disney+. While this news should be taken with a pinch of salt until the studio makes an official confirmation themselves, it would be an incredibly positive step forward for John Carter fans who never got the John Carter 2 & 3 they were hoping for.
John Carter
PG-13
Adventure
Sci-Fi
Action
Where to Watch
*Availability in US
- stream
- rent
- buy
Adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars, Disney's John Carter brings the author's Barsoom series to life. When American Confederate Civil War captain John Carter accidentally transports himself to Mars, he soon becomes entangled in the planet's own internal power struggles. Using the increased strength and speed afforded to him by Mars' atmosphere, Carter fights to achieve peace on the distant planet known by the natives as Barsoom.
- Director
- Andrew Stanton
- Release Date
- March 9, 2012
- Studio(s)
- Disney
- Writers
- Michael Chabon , Mark Andrews , Andrew Stanton
- Cast
- Mark Strong , Willem Dafoe , Taylor Kitsch , Lynn Collins , Bryan Cranston
- Runtime
- 132 minutes
