Flash Gordon

[Gabe99]

From Variety: Sony wins Flash Gordon bidding war

Tue., May 20, 2008, 1:56pm PT
Sony Pictures Entertainment has won out in spirited bidding for the '30s comicstrip "Flash Gordon," negotiating with Hearst for the rights to make a live-action film.
Breck Eisner ("Sahara") is attached to direct. Neal Moritz will produce through his Sony-based Original Films banner.

Deal being negotiated is for high six figures against seven figures if the film gets made.

"Flash Gordon" was turned into a 1980 film that starred Sam Jones. Hearst Corp.'s King Features Syndicate optioned the property to Universal four years ago, with "The Mummy" director Stephen Sommers and his partner Bob Ducsay to produce. Those rights reverted back to Hearst.

Eisner had been attached to direct that version of the movie. When the rights reverted, he teamed with Moritz. Eisner will also exec produce.

In the wake of "Iron Man's" success, studios are showing a heightened appetite for branded fare that could be made into a franchise. Deal comes two weeks after Nu Image/Millennium Films acquired film rights from the John Flint Dille Trust to mount a live-action feature based on the classic property "Buck Rogers."

In the original incarnation of "Flash Gordon," the 1934 comicstrip created by Alex Raymond, Flash was a handsome polo player who is kidnapped and taken to the planet Mongo. He is pitted against an evil ruler named Ming the Merciless. Comicstrip became the basis of a successful movie serial in that era that starred Buster Crabbe, who later played Buck Rogers.

"Flash Gordon" has had numerous lives on the smallscreen, most recently in the contempo Sci Fi Channel series starring Eric Johnson.

Helmer Eisner is also developing a remake of "The Creature From the Black Lagoon" at Universal and a redo of George Romero's "The Crazies" at Rogue. He recently directed an episode of the upcoming NBC horror anthology series "Fear Itself."

'Gordon's Alive!?'
From THR.com: 'Flash Gordon' pace quickens with scribes

Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless to pen the script

Aug 8, 2008, 12:00 AM ET
NEW YORK -- "Flash Gordon" is moving ahead at breakneck speed.

Sony has signed writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless to pen the script for the new take on the outer space tale, just a few months after winning rights to the title from Hearst.

"Flash Gordon" centers on the titular young polo player who is kidnapped and taken to the distant planet Mongo, where he and companions Dale Arden and Hans Zarkov embark on a series of adventures fighting a ruler named Ming the Merciless.

Sony's "Flash," a live-action film, follows in a 75-year tradition across many media for what began life as Alex Raymond's comic strip; the property was a movie serial in the 1930s, a Sam Jones-toplined feature in 1980 and a recent Sci Fi Channel series.

The ICM-repped Sazama and Sharpless are penning the vampire tale "Dracula Year Zero" for Universal and Zack Snyder's "Cobalt 60."

The new "Flash" originally had been set up at Universal, but rights reverted to Hearst's King Features Syndicate after the project sat in development for several years.

Breck Eisner is attached to direct and Neal Moritz to produce, as they were when the project was set up at Universal.

From /film:
New Flash Gordon Film Intense, Gritty, Real; Creature from the Black Lagoon ‘PG-13 Scary’:

The thing about Flash is, you’ve got to throw away the 80s version of it. I want it to be intense, agressive, gritty and real. For me it’s about reinventing Flash - we’re still staying true to the adventure origins of it, and the adventurous spirit in that movie, absolutely. It’s this man brought to another planet and uniting the disperate groups on Mongo, but there is a gritty, intense, dynamic, active quality to the movie. Very modern. It’s not camp.

From 411 Mania:

Sam Worthington is being lined up to star in 'Flash Gordon'.

The actor has been linked to the prospective big screen adaptation of the sci-fi comic book hero created by Alex Raymond.

A source said: "If he gets the role it would be quite a big deal as Flash is an all-American hero." However, Australian star Sam has got to fight off stiff competition for the role - as 'The Proposal' actor Ryan Reynolds is also being considered for the part.

The source explained: "Right now it's between Sam, Ryan Reynolds and one or two others for the lead role should the project actually get off the ground."

2010 is set to be a busy year for 33-year-old Worthington. The actor is due to return to Britain in the New Year to promote the remake of epic action adventure 'Clash of the Titans', which will be released in March. There is also talk of an 'Avatar' sequel, but director James Cameron has already confirmed he will be working on a further project before returning to oversee another 3-D adventure.

Worthington truly is the star of the hour. His high-profile roles in Terminator Salvation and Avatar, combined with his upcoming lead role in Clash, have pegged him as a sure-fire action star. At the same time, he's got a dramatic romance called Last Night coming out in March with Oscar nominee Keira Knightley and the thriller The Debt opposite Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciarán Hinds. It looks like being James Cameron's newest star is doing for Worthington what Titanic did for DiCaprio and Winslet, and I for one am not complaining. He's a much better choice than Ryan Reynolds for Flash Gordon, though personally I wouldn't be complaining if this project didn't get off the ground at all. Flash makes a good cheesy relic of an earlier age of cinema, but I don't see it translating well into a modern film. Let Worthington find other outlets for his career, it will be better for him in the long run.

http://www.411mania.com/movies/colu...News-Report-12.29.09:-Ruminations-on-2009.htm


I hope this gets made.

 

[rogue trooper]

After already being cast as Green Lantern(another comic book space hero), I doubt Ryan Reynolds will do this one. Sam Worthington I could probably see in the role.

Anyway, to me, the best adaptation of Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon remains the 1979 Filmation cartoons.

 

[Jake Cassidy]

Defenders Of The Earth rocked!! t:

 

[terry78]

Flash Gordon needs to have a cocky smartass demeanor. That leaves Worthington out.

 

[tecnowraith]

It better be a lot better than "SyFy's" version of Flash Gordon. God what a mess that, tno ships but worm wholes able to travel back forth? It was better when they were stuck on Mongo which made it more dramatic. The race better stay true it sources too. The Hawkmen in the tv series had no wings just a lot of jumping around and there were a cult of bird worshipers? Not! Plus Mongo did not look alien enough.

 

[Gabe99]

From AICN:

Sam Worthington tells me there's no truth to the FLASH GORDON rumors

 

[Jake Cassidy]

I could see Chris Evans or Jensen Ackles as Flash Gordon.

Ryan Reynolds would be good too, but he can't do everything. t:

 

[Gabe99]

From Motion Captured:
'Crazies' director Breck Eisner wants to tackle pop-SF-icon 'Flash Gordon' next

From Sci Fi Wire:
New Flash Gordon movie: No Queen, no camp, but 3-D!

 

[Gabe99]

From Collider:
Director Breck Eisner Exclusive Interview THE CRAZIES - Plus an Update on FLASH GORDON

I have to ask you about your upcoming projects, particularly Flash Gordon. Can you tell us anything about where that’s at?

Eisner: Flash Gordon is a project I’ve been pursuing for years. It’s a true passion of mine. Sci-fi is a real passion of mine. And I finally got it set up at Sony and we hired the two writers, [Matt] Sazama and [Burk] Sharpless. I’ve been breaking story with them since I finished post on The Crazies, for the last two months or so. We finished that process; we’re now putting pen to paper, or keys to keyboard, and writing the script. We should have that in a month or two. And I think we have an awesome story. It’s not in any way connected to the camp of the ’80’s and it’s not connected to the serials of the ’50’s. It’s very much looking back to the original Alex Raymond strips; it’s imagining that Alex Raymond were to draw the strips today instead of in the ’30’s and ’40s and what would they be? It’ll be action and adventure; it’ll be aggressive and dynamic and intense with a really strong lead character who goes on an interesting personal journey over the course of the movie.

Have you thought about casting at all yet?

Eisner: I’ve definitely thought about casting, but there’s been no discussion yet about the casting with the studio. It’s still a long process to go in getting them to like the script and to want to commit a lot of money to making a movie. It’s going to be a long process before it sees the screen, but hopefully, we’re on the way.

And is this going to be in 3D?

Eisner: Yes, this will definitely be a 3D movie. Like I said, when it’s the right kind of movie, you want to use the right kind of technology, so we intend to shoot it for 3D.

 

[Kent Allard]

I like what we're hearing from Breck Eisner so far, I hope Sony will give him the budget needed to do a good job making the movie.

 

[Lord]

Having just gotten into the Flash Gordon franchise and watched the 80s film i would like to see another one, i liked the 80s one, but i would like to see a more space opera film, Star Wars was inspired by Flash Gordon, i would like to see that tone for the movie.

Still with today's audience it would be difficult to explain why every alien looks human unless they tie all life in the universe to the same source (sort of like Prometheus) but that's probably staying away too much from the source material.

 

[x-fan]

Is this film dead or what, there hasn't been any news for a llooooonnnnnggg time

 

[Motown Marvel]

i love the old flash gordon serials with buster crabbe. i've been looking to pick up a collection of the old alex raymond strips. this movie done well would be astounding.

 

[Gabe99]

From Geeks of Doom
Titan Books To Publish ‘The Complete Flash Gordon Library’

Flash Gordon: On the Planet Mongo: The Complete Flash Gordon Library (Vol. 1) (Alex Raymond Sunday Strips) [Hardcover]

 

[Gabe99]

'Flash Gordon' Star Sam Jones on His Triumphant, Crazy Comeback Role in 'Ted' (Q&A)

 

[Breogan]

What time period/setting would you want Flash Gordon movie?

Classic 1930-40's (retro sci-fi Sky Captain style), retro ships and tech.
Contemporary to future setting, lose the retro look and make it all modern.

 

[Silvermoth]

I know a lot of people would say modern but I just can't get enough of that Golden Age goodness. Done right, it could be as stylish as Mad Men in Space! How epic would that be!

 

[Lord]

Me neither, wish more movies embraced the golden age.

 

[3rdstone]

This could be fun. I remember reading reprints of the Alex Raymond comics as a kid, and also watching Buster Crabbe as Flash on TV. I think I've watched the movie from -80 sometime, but I actually can't remember anything from it. Well, except for the song with Queen of course.

 

[Lord]

While i liked the 80s film i would prefer the reboot to not use the camp, i would like it to be in the style of the golden age with some space opera elements.

 

[3rdstone]

While i liked the 80s film i would prefer the reboot to not use the camp, i would like it to be in the style of the golden age with some space opera elements.

I have to watch it, I might've just seen parts of it at some moment. But I agree, it would have to be less cheezy, but would still be cool if it had some retro/golden age feeling.

 

[Gabe99]

Superman Classic creator Robb Pratt unveils Flash Gordon Classic

In 2011, Superman Classic caught the online community by surprise. The traditionally animated short breathed new life into many of the hallmarks associated with the iconic superhero. But most impressively, it had been created by one man in his spare time, in one year: Robb Pratt. He followed that success with last year’s well-received sequel, Bizarro. Now, in an Animated Views exclusive, Pratt is thrilled to announce his next project: Flash Gordon Classic.

 

[Gabe99]

Flash Gordon’s alive!
Alex Raymond’s pulp hero getting ready to rise again

Though Flash Gordon was originally created as ‘a response’ to Buck Rogers, it looks to me like the blond, polo-playing graduate from Yale went on to have the more successful career.

For his part, Rogers started out in prose, back in 1928, and quickly moved into comics. He later starred in a couple of shorts, one big-screen serial and two TV series but, to date, there’s been no Buck Rogers feature film. Jerry Bruckheimer did spend a lot of time and money on trying to get the right screenplay, but he eventually gave up and let his option lapse.

Meanwhile, Steven ‘Flash’ Gordon started out in Alex Raymond‘s comic strip, a commission inspired by Rogers’ success. He later took the lead in three separate serials, had the starring role in the 80s cartoon series Defenders of the Earth, appeared in a one-season TV series as recently as 2008, and is being reworked for a shoddy-looking animated show as we speak.

The scene ended up on the cutting room floor, but Gordon was even intended to make a cameo appearance in the much-loved perennial, A Christmas Story. And perhaps most notoriously, it was after George Lucas failed to get the go ahead on a Flash Gordon adaptation that he set about writing Star Wars.

But the character’s proudest moment was the 1980 feature film. Or, at the very least, this was his brashest, boldest and most fearless moment. Mike Hodges‘ picture is Fellini-does-Forbidden Planet, a selflessly entertaining movie that sweats stardust and drips camp. This one movie is more beloved than any other incarnation of the character, and outshines the late-70s TV version of Buck Rogers both literally and figuratively.

In recent years, both Rogers and Gordon have been promised reboots or remakes. Either character could very easily see a revival that, judging from today’s box office and the audience’s ongoing appetite for super-glossy pulp, has real potential to make them into bigger, better-known pop culture figures than ever before.

A few years back, Flint Dille – the grandson of John Dille, who was Rogers’ original comic strip publisher – decided that he was going to write a retro-styled Buck Rogers feature himself. Frank Miller was associated with the project for just moment, his involvement quickly refuted by Dille himself. Nothing more solid ever came to light.

Meanwhile, Universal attached Breck Eisner to a new, big-screen Flash Gordon in the mid-2000s. When that didn’t happen quickly enough, the rights reverted to Hearst Entertainment who then optioned them out to Sony, where Eisner, a passionate Gordon fan, remained attached. He set to work with Dracula: Year Zero‘s Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless in developing what would have been a new, expensive and lavishly-marketed 3D feature.

But it’s four years later and that didn’t happen either. Things have moved on again for Flash, and I understand that there’s fresh attempt bring him back into the limelight underway right now.

JD Payne and Patrick McKay are writers working on Star Trek 3 and who previously adapted Boilerplate for Bad Robot. So far, none of their scripts have gone before cameras, but they’re still considered hot stuff. They’ve just recently put together a new take on Gordon with producer Jon Davis and are now in the process of making a studio deal.

Like Eisner’s approach, Payne and McKay’s new pitch goes right back to the original Raymond comic strips and sidesteps any association with the movie, and even the serials. The idea, I’m told, is to reclaim Flash Gordon from his current reputation in the way that Tim Burton redirected the public conception of Batman.

But Burton was working with inertia from a comic book reinvention of the caped crusader that, actually, rendered that particular nickname all but inappropriate. Burton’s film was coming after seminal strips like The Dark Knight Returns, Year One and The Killing Joke. The audience haven’t been primed for Payne and McKay’s take on Flash Gordon in anything like the same way. In fact, the character was last seen in Seth MacFarlane‘s Ted, with a cameo from Flash’s alter-ego Sam J. Jones, celebrating Hodges’ film and it’s campy, cult credentials. And Queen’s unforgettable, undeniably catchy theme tune has ensured that there’s a part of Flash that will always, always be a little bit kitsch.

Don’t expect Payne and McKay to take their Flash Gordon to inappropriate, Christopher Nolan-like extremes, but instead hit a tone closer to the rebooted Star Trek; I guess that’s their wheelhouse. This new incarnation would be full of adventure and razor’s edge escapades, balanced by plenty of character work but no real anguish, ponderous chin-stroking or middle-distance staring.

While Buck Rogers lies sleeping, it looks like Flash Gordon will rise again. I guess genre fans really do prefer blonds.

 

[rogue trooper]

Sounds interesting! Yeah, something like Abram's Star Trek would be the way to go with this, with a bit of John Carter-like action.

 

[Gabe99]

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.