Strong Heavy

Actor Mark Strong gave a long Q & A to Collider--among the topics discussed Andrew Stanton's John Carter of Mars .

Strong is playing Matai Shang who appears in Edgar Rice Burroughs'.series of novels by book three, A Warlord of Mars. Shang rules a race called the Ferns who, says Strong, "exist over and above the Martians like Olympian gods. People aren't sure they exist, but they do! They travel round keeping order: Shang is basically a Master of the Universe."

Strong has seen treatments for parts 2 and 3 of the planned trilogy, and says Shang "comes into his own during the second half of the current movie, and then just gets bigger and bigger in the sequels. He's basically John Carter's nemesis."

Shooting will last five months, before two years of post-production FX work that will see the film released in 2012. Strong says he's not aware that 3-D is on the agenda, but concedes that, in the wake of Avatar, "Stanton's brain will be whirring and eyes twinkling: he'll want to surpass it. No question."

Pixar Animation Studios' first live-action pic--Mars stars Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, Dominic West, Polly Walker, Thomas Haden Church and James Purefoy..

Filming kicks off in London in January.