Everyone who grew up in the early 1980’s are still aware of the campy 1980 "Flash Gordon" movie adaptation starring Timothy Dalton, Max von Sydow, Chaim Topol and Sam Jones and a soundtrack by Queen.
It appears that the comic strip hero created in 1934 by Alex Raymond will have another shot at the big screen after Twentieth Century Fox has picked up the film rights for the science-fiction character with Star Trek 3 writers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay tasked to develop the script.
The plot of the story is fairly straight-forward. Flash was a polo player who was kidnapped together with travel journalist Dale Arden by a scientist, Dr. Hans Zarkov, and taken to the planet Mongo, which was ruled by Ming the Merciless. From there, he embarked on a series of adventures with Arden, Prince Barin of Arboria and Vultan’s flying hawkmen to overthrow Emperor Ming.
According to some sources, Fox isn't the only studio who has been eying Flash Gordon for an adaptation — not to mention a potential franchise — which isn’t at all surprising. At this point, it’s safe to assume that all vintage action heroes will soon be getting the Hollywood treatment.
The problem is that Fox does not have that commendable record when it comes to superhero movies. The disastrous flops of the X-Men (1999), Daredevil (2002), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), Elektra (2004) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) are just some of the prime examples of Fox’s failure to maximize the potential of comic book characters.
If only they have followed the original material and stick to the 50 or so years old characters, things would have been different.
It appears that the comic strip hero created in 1934 by Alex Raymond will have another shot at the big screen after Twentieth Century Fox has picked up the film rights for the science-fiction character with Star Trek 3 writers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay tasked to develop the script.
The plot of the story is fairly straight-forward. Flash was a polo player who was kidnapped together with travel journalist Dale Arden by a scientist, Dr. Hans Zarkov, and taken to the planet Mongo, which was ruled by Ming the Merciless. From there, he embarked on a series of adventures with Arden, Prince Barin of Arboria and Vultan’s flying hawkmen to overthrow Emperor Ming.
According to some sources, Fox isn't the only studio who has been eying Flash Gordon for an adaptation — not to mention a potential franchise — which isn’t at all surprising. At this point, it’s safe to assume that all vintage action heroes will soon be getting the Hollywood treatment.
The problem is that Fox does not have that commendable record when it comes to superhero movies. The disastrous flops of the X-Men (1999), Daredevil (2002), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), Elektra (2004) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) are just some of the prime examples of Fox’s failure to maximize the potential of comic book characters.
If only they have followed the original material and stick to the 50 or so years old characters, things would have been different.
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