Mark Strong is an actor I really like. He’s been great in everything I’ve seen him in lately (Sherlock Holmes, RockNRolla) and he’s now about to play Matai Shang in “John Carter Of Mars” written and directed by Andrew Stanton, the incredibly talented writer of “Wall-E”, “Finding Nemo”, “Monster’s Inc”, etc.

Collider rang up Mark as he was making preparations to start the filming on JCOM that will run from Jan to May in London and in Utah. Mark gave up some excellent plot goods. Let’s view a snippet shall we?

I play a character called Matai Shang and he is the ruler of a group of people called the Ferns who are like the old Olympian Gods. They exist….people aren’t really sure if they exist, but basically he’s a master of the Universe. They travel ’round keeping order in the Universe. So basically he exists over and above the Martians that exist on the planet. Like I say, he’s like an Olympian God.  I mean getting to play Mati Shang Master of the Universe, it doesn’t get much better than that.

And later on that day….

Are they shooting John Carter, pardon me I don’t know if they’ve announced this or not, but are they shooting it in 3D?

I don’t believe so. Not that I know of, no. I’ve certainly never heard that or been told that. No, I know it’s a combination of live action and motion capture. That’s all I know for right now.

No 3D huh. That’s disappointing. After watching “Avatar” in the 3D IMAX theatre round the way I am convinced that any big action adventure movie, Sci-Fi or otherwise has to be in 3D just to keep up. Can you imagine “Saving Private Ryan” in 3D or “Cloverfield” or how about the next “Star Wars” movie? After “Avatar”, tons of new people were exposed to just what 3D can do to your mind. It’s now become much more of a crowd draw all by itself. Punch on over to Collider for the full interview with Mark Strong where he also spills on his roles in “Robin Hood” and “Kick Ass”