Flash Gordon in Development at Sony!
A hot comic strip property is speeding through development. According to The Hollywood Reporter Sony has hired screenwriters Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless to write the adaptation of Flash Gordon.
Flash Gordon, which started as a comic strip by Alex Reynonlds, 75 years ago, concentrates on a polo player who is abducted and taken to the planet of Mongo where he battles the villainous Ming the Merciless with his pals Dale Arden and Hans Zarkov.
Breck Eisner is set to direct the film. The project was originally to be developed at Universal, but when the film languished in development, the rights reverted back to the Hearst newspaper empire and its King Features Syndicate, where Sony obtained the rights from.
I do not know if this can be a good movie. Sci-fi attempted to reboot it as a series and it failed miserably and a lot of that is contributed to weak writing and poor show running. Breck Eisner is a good director and I can see him doing a good job visually with a film like this. I do not know much about these writers but if they can somehow make the character of Flash relevant today and also making Mongo and that alternate world look better and more up to date I think their may be an opportunity to have a cool film for a new generation of audience members. I get kind of hypocritical and most of you readers who listen to our podcast and read my stuff know I am a stickler for source material but sometimes it is good take some creative liberties much like Nolan did for Batman by putting him in a more realistic setting. I could see Mongo being re-created visually for this film and with a big budget it could work.
