Flash Gordon (???)

[Henry88]

THR 12/13/2013:
Fox in Talks to Pick Up Mark Millar's 'Starlight'
Simon Kinberg of "X-Men: Days of Future Past" will produce the comic book adaptation.

Twentieth Century Fox is in negotiations to pick up Starlight, an upcoming comic from Wanted and Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar.

Simon Kinberg, who worked on X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, will produce the adaptation.

The comic, drawn by Goran Parlov and due to be published by Image in March, is described by Millar as Flash Gordon meets The Dark Knight Returns. It centers on a space hero who saved the universe 35 years ago but came back to Earth, where no one believed his fantastic stories. He settled down, got married, had kids and got old, but then is called back for one last adventure when his old rocket shows up.

The deal marks a reteaming between Kinberg and Millar. Kinberg is producing an adaptation of Millar's Kindergarten Heroes, which has Carter Blanchard on board writing the script.

It also keeps Millar in the studio fold, as Fox is behind Matthew Vaughn's adaptation of Millar's miniseries The Secret Service, which stars Colin Firth.

Kinberg, who just reupped his first-look deal at the studio and is overseeing the expansion of the X-Men universe there, is repped by CAA and Jackoway Tyerman.

Millar is repped by Resolution and Harris Miller.

THR 4/22/2014:
'Flash Gordon' Movie in the Works at Fox (Exclusive)
"Star Trek 3" scribes J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay will work from a treatment by George Nolfi to write the script.

Flash Gordon could be rocketing back to the big screen.

Twentieth Century Fox has closed a deal to pick up the screen rights to the pulp comic-strip hero in a package that has John Davis producing and J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, the up-and-coming scribes who just worked on Star Trek 3, on board to write the script.

The deal is a long time coming for Davis, who spent more than a year nailing down the rights from the Hearst Corporation. The veteran producer, whose credits include Chronicle and the upcoming Man from U.N.C.L.E. among dozens of others, used his discretionary fund to get the rights. He also hired George Nolfi, who wrote Bourne Ultimatum, to pen a treatment and brought in Payne and McKay.

(Nolfi now joins Davis as a producer on Gordon.)

Gordon is the hero first created in 1934 by iconic artist Alex Raymond who, along with the lovely Dale Arden and mad scientist Hans Zasrkov, ends up on the planet Mongo fighting its tyrannical ruler, Ming the Merciless.

The popular strip spawned three Buster Crabbe serials and in 1980 came the cheesy, colorful Flash Gordon movie, which had a soundtrack by Queen and cast that included Timothy Dalton, Max von Sydow and Chaim Topol. (Sam Jones played Gordon, who original backstory of being a polo player was modernized to be a football player.)

Hollywood has been trying to make a new movie and possibly a franchise for ages, with Gordon's rights set up at Universal, Mandalay and more recently Sony, where Neal Moritz tried to launch the rocket to Mongo.

Fox exec Matt Reilly identified the project early and brought it into the studio; he will now oversee the project. (Reilly is a former Warner Bros. exec who worked on the Lego Movie at its inception.)

Before nabbing Star Trek 3, Payne and McKay previously wrote the script adapting Boilerplate, the graphic novel by husband-and-wife comics team Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett, for J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot production company. They also wrote Micronauts, a feature based on the 1970's toy line that Abrams is producing.

The duo are repped by UTA and Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment.

[Rainbow Dash]

FLASH!!!!!

REBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTT

It will suck a whole lot!

[KidFlash]

It should at least be better than the visual tire fire that was the Sci-Fi series. Improving on that won't be hard.

Of course, the 1980 film casts a long shadow over the character, anyway. Odd that the film was a financial failure in 1980/81, and yet is fondly remembered today. Three cheers for cable, I guess.

The question remains: will people go for a grittier Flash Gordon? (I'd still make sure Justin Hawkins is sober enough so that he and The Darkness can assume their destiny and cover a few songs off of the Queen soundtrack.)

[Johnny Unusual]

I kind of would prefer it be a movie about Brian Blessed's birdman constantly being impressed that other people are alive.

[Darth Geek]

I kind of would prefer it be a movie about Brian Blessed's birdman constantly being impressed that other people are alive.

Including himself.


I'm sure they would have a cameo by Brian Blessed in the reboot. How could they not?

[KidFlash]

Including himself.

I'm sure they would have a cameo by Brian Blessed in the reboot. How could they not?

I guess Ridley Scott held the rights at some point in the 90s and was actually toying with the idea of bringing Blessed back as King Vultan (which they should totally do anyway). But I'm going to guess that this version of Flash will be dialed down a bit, so the references to the '80 version are probably going to be minimal.

[Gandalf Lundgren]

Actually just watched it on TV 2 days ago.

[monsterbrains]

The 1980 version cannot be followed.  This will be even more pathetic than the Footloose remake.  ....which makes me think of a new list of crap idea PATENT PENDING.