Matthew Vaughn has entered into talks to direct a new film version of Flash Gordon for 20th Century Fox.
It looks like Matthew Vaughn is gearing up for his next comic-inspired film at 20th Century Fox…and it’s not the Kingsman sequel many expected.
Proving that audiences can enjoy extreme, R-rated action-comedies still with the February box office hit of Kingsman: The Secret Service, director Vaughn has entered into talks to direct 20th Century Fox’s Flash Gordon reboot.
After picking up the project from John Davis’ King Features in 2014, Fox has been eyeing a new approach for Flash Gordon that probably will not include the soundtrack by Queen from the 1980 film (though it should), and Vaughn is certainly in favor with the studio at the moment.
Previously, Vaughn helped Fox rebrand the X-Men franchise into something of quality with 2011’s X-Men: First Class, and they sense have partnered for the filmmaker’s love letter/middle finger to the spy genre with Kingsman: The Secret Service, which is on track to cross $400 million worldwide this month.
Following that success, many suspected that Vaughn’s next picture would indeed be another mission with Eggsy and the rest for a Kingsman 2, which Vaughn has spoken about publicly (including with us). However, maintaining his status of not doing sequels, be they Kick-Ass 2 or X-Men: Days of Future Past, it appears that Vaughn’s flying on to other things…like savior of the universe.
Flash Gordon is a character created by artist Alex Raymond in 1934 for the comic strip of the same name. Originally, Flash was the story of a space opera hero that ends up stranded with Dale Arden on the planet Mongo, a strange alien world ruled over by Ming the Merciless.
J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay of Star Trek 3 have contributed the most recent script to the project.
