The writers of Star Trek 3 are making a new Flash Gordon movie happen at 20th Century Fox.
There are many mysteries in the world, but there are two that we find particularly vexing. One is how the endlessly entertaining and Mike Hodges directed Flash Gordon film never got a sequel in the '80s. The other is how we have gone well over thirty years without a proper live-action Flash Gordon movie (the Syfy series from a few years ago doesn't count). That is all going to change, as 20th Century Fox have made a deal with Star Trek 3 writers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay to make a new Flash Gordon movie, with John Davis (Chronicle) producing.
There had been rumors about Payne and McKay's involvement swirling for a bit, and it's not like there had been any lack of trying to get Flash Gordon back to the big-screen in the last decade or two. Notably, Die Hard scribe Steven E. de Souza wrote a Flash Gordon draft back around 1997 while Breck Eisner (Sahara) was set to direct at one point. This is the first (and loudest) announcement about Flash Gordon we've heard in quite some time, though.
Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon comic strip was the visual godfather of Superman and many other Golden Age superheroes. The three Flash Gordon movie serials are incredible influences on virtually every space opera of the next 50 years or more, most notably and importantly a little franchise known as Star Wars. The 1980 Mike Hodges film, while often dismissed as a piece of indulgent camp with a spectacular Queen soundtrack, was a nice counterpoint to the more lived-in (but still recognizably Raymond-esque) Star Wars. Just as surely as a character like Superman has been omnipresent in various media since his creation, so should a character like Flash Gordon flourish.
There are no details out there about the tone or story. In an interview with Den of Geek, former Flash Gordon writer Steven E. de Souza joked that the failure of John Carter probably killed Flash Gordon's prospects "for ten years" because of the similarities of an earthman going to fight a war on an alien world. While this is no longer the case, hopefully the new filmmakers don't shy away from what makes Flash Gordon great, and embrace at least a little of the visual spectacle that made the character endure.
Source:The Hollywood Reporter
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