EXCLUSIVE: Humans fled Earth to colonize a distant planet in "Avatar," and now they could be do it again in "The Martian Chronicles."

Sources say that John Davis, the Fox-based producer behind such science-fiction hits as "Alien vs. Predator" and "I, Robot," has optioned film rights to the Ray Bradbury classic , in which humans land on Mars after a cataclysmic disaster and interact/clash with the natives in a series of interlinked adventures.

Bradbury's 1950 short-story collection has made it to the screen before, in a 1980 television miniseries that starred Rock Hudson and Bernadette Peters. But 30 years later, there's plenty more that technology (and 3-D?) could bring to the tales.

There's certainly ample narrative material in the book, which chronicle much of the action from humans' point of view, with some philosophical inquiry layered atop the pulp stories. One thing that may need to change, however, is the timing: Bradbury's original book set a chunk of the stories in the distant future -- in 2000 and 2005.

--Steven Zeitchik

Twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: "The Martian Chronicles." Credit: Doubleday Dell

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