Trivia

Mario Kassar had the project at Disney in the 1980s, but it was also listed under his development projects during his deal at Paramount in the mid-'90s. In 2004--when the project was still known as "A Princess of Mars" after the book on which it's based--Robert Rodriguez had originally been signed and announced as director and had begun pre-production early that year (it would have been his largest project to date, with starting budget reported at $100 million). Rodriguez' most notable contribution was to hire fantasy painter Frank Frazetta (whose most acclaimed works have included striking illustrations of Edgar Rice Burroughs novels, most notably the "John Carter on Mars" books) as production designer. However, when Rodriguez resigned from the Directors' Guild of America (DGA) the same year (due to a dispute over his film Sin City), Paramount was forced to replace him. The studio has a long-standing arrangement with the DGA in which only the organization's members may direct Paramount films. He was replaced with Kerry Conran, who had just finished Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. In 2005 Conran left the project and was replaced by Jon Favreau just before the release of Favreau's movie Zathura: A Space Adventure; Favreau was on-board to direct until around August 2006. At that time Paramount chose not to renew the film rights, preferring to focus on Star Trek, and Favreau left to work on Iron Man. In January 2007 Disney regained the rights (it had rights to film the story previously: in the 1980s with director John McTiernan), and enlisted Andrew Stanton from Pixar to direct.

Jon Hamm and Josh Duhamel were considered for the role of John Carter.

The music in the first theatrical trailer uses two instrumental arrangements of "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin. The first (starting at 0:53) was performed by Australian/British string quartet Bond, the second (starting at 1:25) was performed by Corner Stone Cues (this arrangement is called "Ten Years Kashmir Mvt II (Orch, Choir & Perc Mix))".

The Teaser features the song "My Body is a Cage", originally written by Arcade Fire. The version used in the teaser is by Peter Gabriel, released on his 2011 album of cover versions, "Scratch My Back".

The film was originally titled and marketed as "John Carter of Mars", but director Andrew Stanton removed "of Mars" from the opening credits and promotional material to make it more appealing to a broader audience, stating that the film is an "origin story... It's about a guy becoming John Carter of Mars." The entire title "John Carter of Mars" is displayed during the end credits.

When Jon Favreau learned that Andrew Stanton had picked up the film, he gave him a call congratulating him and requesting that he could play a Thark. Favreau voices a "Thark Bookie".

One of Dejah's red tattoos on her right arm resembles Mickey Mouse's head.

For each of the super jumps that Taylor Kitsch performed, he was attached to a harness that allowed him to free-fall at a speed of 80 mph. Kitsch apparently found it unpleasant.

About 1,800 costumes were designed--383 yards of cloth material were used to design the Thern costumes, while Dejah's wedding dress, cuffs and crown had 120,000 Swarovski crystals attached by hand.

Ciarán Hinds, James Purefoy, Polly Walker and Nicholas Woodeson also played together in the TV series Rome.

Robert Zemeckis turned down the chance to direct, quipping "George [George Lucas] already pillaged all of that" with the "Star Wars" films.

During the Arena scene John Carter is chained to a rock. The top of the spike that is in the rock is the shape of the D in the Disney logo.

The inscription over Carter's crypt - "Inter Mundos" - is Latin for "Between Worlds". Appropriate, since Carter uses the crypt to cross over to Mars and travel between worlds.