K.T Simpson
A couple of years back, Marvel wunderkind Taika Waititi announced plans to direct a new ‘animated’ film based on pulp classic “Flash Gordon”.
According to the film’s producer, action-movie giant John Davis (“Predator”, “Waterworld”, “Daylight”), the flick is now a live-action venture.
Davis suggests the decision was down to the filmmaker but I’m betting 20th Century Studios saw what a whizzbang job Waititi did on the similar-themed “Thor Ragnarok” and decided he’d bash a live-action “Flash Gordon” out of the park.
“Taika is writing it”, the “Jungle Cruise” alum tells Collider. “It was a movie that was a huge influence on him growing up. It is one of his favorite movies. He initially said to me, ‘Let’s do it animated.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ Then we got into it and started developing it and he said, ‘No, let’s do it live-action.’ I said, ‘Even better.’”
Waititi has a fantastically interesting vision for the movie, according to Davis.
“And you can only know it is Taika. It is what he does. It is the way he looks at the world. He is the greatest guy in the world. He is the funniest guy in the world. And he thinks on a different plain. And this movie embraces everything that’s special about Taika, and his vision. It harkens in a very interesting way to the original conception from the comics.”
The last “Flash Gordon” (1980) movie, though now considered a cult classic, was a box office flop outside of the UK and Italy.
