Intro to Abraham Sherman’s adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “A Princess of Mars”

    You are about to read a sample of a screenplay adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “A Princess of Mars” that was written out of sheer love for the world of Barsoom.

    This script should not exist.  At least, that’s what I’ve heard from the voice of reason that has been in the back of my mind for thirteen years.  The same message was conveyed to me with subtlety and sensitivity by nearly every film industry professional I met over the years.  (You kind of HAVE to be sensitive with a teenager who undertakes something this ridiculous.)

    Over the history of this adaptation, there were very few, brief windows of opportunity when something could have actually come of it.  Those were the moments when the filmmaking rights to the series of novels were changing hands or awaiting their next suitor.

    Again, there was no good reason to write this.  This type of story demands the highest possible filmmaking budget, and such projects are entrusted only to Hollywood elites, not to fifteen year-olds raised in rural Carmel Valley, California.  Yet, that fifteen year-old had already seen the movie of “A Princess of Mars” in his ERB-cultivated imagination and could not stop until he had put that film into words, in anticipation that it might someday be put into pictures and sounds. 

    It has been my secret hope that the highly unreasonable nature of this endeavor would be accompanied by proportional insights into the best ways of bringing Barsoom to the big screen.  Sometimes it is those efforts furthest out of the box that can achieve the greatest success.  We’ll see.

    Enjoy the sample!

-Abraham Bard Sherman