VIDEO: Disney's New Movie 'John Carter'

The first trailers for Disney/ Pixar’s alien action film John Carter, which stars Friday Night Lights’ Taylor Kitsch (pictured) in the lead role, have been released.

The movie is a sci-fi drama based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novel A Princess of Mars from his Barsoom series. A Civil War military captain, John Carter (played by Kitsch), is transported to Mars, and finds himself caught between the tall inhabitants of Mars, including Tars Tarkas (voiced by Willem Dafoe) and Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins, who plays Carter’s love interest) and her people. It falls to Carter to save the planet.

The cast also includes Mark Strong, Samantha Morton, Ciarán Hinds, James Purefoy, Dominic West, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Haden Church and Polly Walker.

This could be Kitsch, 30's big star-maker, since it is his first lead role. He played a war photographer in The Bang Bang Club, and had a role in John Tucker Must Die and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. But most fans know him as the troubled small town fullback Tim Riggins in Friday Night Lights.

The film, which opens in theaters in March 2012, is directed by Andrew Stanton, who gave us Wall-E, Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life.

Watch the trailer here: