This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
When it came to make "John Carter," the sci-fi blockbuster based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels about warring tribes on Mars, director Andrew Stanton said he lucked out when it came to choosing Utah for locations.
In an interview with Postmedia News (printed in the Vancouver Sun), Stanton said southern Utah's bleak red-rock landscapes were perfect for Mars.
Getting permission to use them turned out to be easier than filmmakers thought. Here's an excerpt from the story:
The cult status of the Burroughs Mars books helped the filmmakers overcome any resistance from Utah's Bureau of Land Management, when it came to filming in protected areas. "That's my favourite book," a bureau official exclaimed. It later turned out that Utah governor Gary Herbert was also a fan of A Princess of Mars, the Burroughs novel on which John Carter is based - so much so, that he visited the set during filming. "So we had no problem," Stanton remembers.