As companies look for more and more established IP to mine for new movies and TV shows, everything available is up for grabs. The latest is Buck Rogers, which Lost veteran Brian K. Vaughan will develop into a new show for Legendary.
Lest you think he's only been seen in the 1970s/1980s series that starred Gil Gerard, Buck's history stretches further back. Developed by Chicago newspaperman John F. Dille in the 1930s, it immediately became one of the world’s most popular comic strips, read by millions daily in the newspapers all over the world. The strip was essentially Rip Van Winkle in the future in which a modern-day man wakes up 500 years in the future to a world that is no longer recognizable to him. In this future world, so many of the staples of today’s science fiction films made first appearances: ray guns, rocket ships, jet packs, laser beams. The strip’s vision of the future influenced the World’s Fair and Tomorrowland in Disneyland. It became so popular that in 1939 it led to a wildly successful 12-part serial starring Buster Crabbe. Between the strips, serial and later comic books Buck Rogers became as known to every American as Tarzan and Mickey Mouse.
The aim for this version - which adapts Armageddon 2419 A.D., the novella by Philip Francis Nowlan that introduced the Buck Rogers character in 1928 – is to launch a series that spins off into a potential movie franchise. Given how well that has worked out for other ideas so far (Dark Tower), we're not holding our breath on that front. But Vaughan has serious genre chops, so we'll wait and see what he does with Rogers.