I had fun with John Carter while freely admitting it has its problems. I’ve seen it once and don’t feel the need to see it again, though I would be interested in seeing more of the story told. However, I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Much of the blame for the film’s big budget and subsequent box-office failure fell on the shoulders of co-writer and director Andrew Stanton who made the leap from director of Pixar hits A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo and WALL•E to his first live-action feature with Carter. Well, now it looks like Stanton is heading back to where he started and is set to return to Pixar to direct Finding Nemo 2 based on his own original concept, having co-written and directed the first installment back in 2003.
Interestingly enough, it seem Stanton wasn’t exactly keen to return to Nemo even as recently as this past February when he told Coming Soon, “[A sequel has] always kind of put a bad taste in my mouth because I never planned for that… We have said this at Pixar now. We’ve kind of come to terms with it. We’re not against a sequel being made as long as it’s a story we love so much that we’d be dying just to make it, so we’re just waiting for stories to tell us if it’s worthy of doing. Right now, I’ve never been able to think of anything beyond what Nemo was on its own.”
A curious quote considering the situation, but hey, he may not have to think about what the film will entail, writing duties have fallen on the shoulders of Victoria Strouse with an eye for a 2016 release. As far as where the story will take Nemo that is still up for debate as the original film is set to return to theaters this September for a 3-D re-release dated September 14.
The original film featured the voice work of Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Willem Dafoe, Geoffrey Rush, Allison Janney and Brad Garrett. There’s no talk as of yet over who will be returning.
[via THR]
