‘Overlord’ director Julius Avery has been announced to take the helm of 20th Century Fox’s rebooted ‘Flash Gordon’.
Avery will also pen the script for the cult hero story. Avery is said to have fallen in love with the comic and decided to pitch the studio his own version of the story. Fox jumped at the chance to bring the age-old story back to life, giving Avery the reigns to take it forward.
‘Flash Gordon’ is the hero of a space opera adventure comic strip created by and originally drawn by Alex Raymond. The strip was first published in 1934, it was inspired by and created to compete with, the already established ‘Buck Rogers’ adventure strip.
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The comic strip has since been adapted for TV and movies as well as an animated series. Originally failing at the box office, the 1980 film version has since gone on reach cult status. Directed by Mike Hodges and produced by Dino De Laurentiis, It starred Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Topol, Max von Sydow, Timothy Dalton, Brian Blessed and Ornella Muti. The soundtrack was composed, performed and produced by the rock band Queen.
Fox had already tried to remake the film with Kingsman’s Matthew Vaughn at the helm. J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay had penned a script for Vaughn’s version back in 2015.
Vaughn will produce alongside John Davis.
Avery made his feature film debut with the Alicia Vikander, Ewan McGregor lead ‘Son of a Gun’. He is currently the recipient of mostly positive critic reviews for his upcoming gore-fest ‘Overlord’.
