Mark Strong Explains Why John Carter Of Mars Is Just John Carter Now

While during an interview with Movie.com for his upcoming movie Green Lantern, Mark Strong shed some light on the recent name change of John Carter of Mars to just John Carter. Strong, who plays Matai Shang in the film, states that the reason for the name change seems to be to save the name for future installments of the franchise.

Interestingly, John Carter’s had its titled changed. And there seems to be some kind of confusion as to why this should be, and I think the reason is brilliant. The reason is that he has to earn that title. Again, it’s a franchise or a number of books; a series of books that people may or may not know, but if you call him John Carter of Mars, I think at the very beginning, all the work’s been done and what Andrew wants to do, I think, is introduce people to this first film, and by the end of it, he becomes John Carter of Mars, but not at the beginning. In the beginning he’s John Carter, but by the end of the first film, he’s John Carter of Mars; so he’s earned that title to take it off should it want to go to further storytelling.