Why can't Hollywood make Mars work?

Cover of Red Planet [Region 2]

Anyone else realize the last broadly successful science fiction movie set on Mars was 1990's Total Recall -- the movie that Colin Farrell is helping remake sans the Martian elements? Tinseltown seems to keep fumbling any version of the Red Planet that sees the big screen -- and I include Red Planet in that eulogy.

So, is Mars cursed in Hollywood?

That's question I try to answer in SF Signal Podcast Episode 117.

Fortunately, Fred Kiesche, Jeff Patterson, Scott Cupp, Paul Weimer and Patrick Hester are there to drown out my cynical meanderings about the cinematic value of the fourth rock from our sun. Give a listen, if only for Golden Age Flash Gordon references and the gratuitous namecheck of the Viking landers.

Per usual, the backlog of my established SF Signal Podcast errors is available here.