The man who can do no wrong. Taika Waititi, has been commissioned to figure out a way to bring together an animated ‘Flash Gordon’ for Disney’s newly acquired 20th Century Fox.
The long in development property seems to have taken a new route as an animation under Disney’s ownership but at the moment, in what capacity Waititi could be taking this project forward is yet to be determined.
‘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. It since went on to attach ‘Overlord’ director, Julius Avery, to the project. Whether the live-action feature is still also on the cards is unclear.
Waititi is currently in post-production on ‘Jojo Rabbit’, his scripted adaptation of the Christine Leunens novel, a satire in which a young boy in Hitler’s army discovers that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl from the Nazis. Despite the ruthless nationalism in the air, the youth is torn and one of the voices guiding him is his idiot imaginary friend Adolf Hitler (Waititi plays him).
