Next Friday, John Carter opens in cinemas (in the UK anyway).

There has been a lot of scuttlebutt (1) circulating about the PR for this film, or lack of same, much of it placing the blame on Disney who are releasing it(2). Certainly, although it's a project that various filmy sort of people have been talking about since just about forever, the actual film seems to have snuck up on us, and until this week I'd not actually seen any kind of advertising for it or much suggestion that it even existed. I stumbled onto the trailer by chance, and there's been a second trailer recently, and they have both blown me away. I will most definitely be watching this come Friday.

Burroughs' (3) John Carter books are some of the early gems of genre fiction — the series is one of the most enduring and influential ever, and truly deserves a good outing on the screen — with modern effects it's absolutely doable. Of course, trailers have lied to us before, and the film may follow Conan down the road to mediocrity, but seriously, I have not wanted a film to be good so badly for a long, long time. Expect a bitter, bitter post next Friday if it's not.

(1) Not the name of a character in John Carter to my knowledge.

(2) Unless this is all party of a cunning reverse psychology stunt by Disney to get people rooting for the film of course!

(3) Edgar Rice, not William. If William Burroughs ever wrote any books about people on Mars… actually possibly he did. Maybe that's what all of his books are about.