He's unleashing giant beasts battling on us mortals with Kong Vs Godzilla arriving in cinemas. And if director Adam Wingard has his way, he'll be dipping into '80s nostalgia for a ThunderCats CG/2D animated film.
For those who might not be familiar with the original TV 'toon (and toy line/books/comics/later animated adventures etc) ThunderCats follows a group of cat-like humanoids who flee the dying planet Thundera and head for "Third Earth" where they do battle with cackling baddie Mumm-Ra. The goodies are led – usually – by hotheaded young warrior Lion-O, who wields the Sword Of Omens, which gives him sight beyond sight and other powers. Cue Brexit UK types/wall-loving US peeps moaning about "bloody immigrants coming here to fight their conflicts. First it was the robots, now it's the cats?"
A film version of the original '80s 'toon has been in the works for a few years now, and Wingard got, er, wind of it via the producers he worked with on the Death Note film. Turns out, he's a giant ThunderCats fan... "Nobody on this planet knows or has thought as much about ThunderCats as I have," he tells Deadline. "They gave me the reins. I saw this as an opportunity to do a new type of fantasy sci-fi spectacle film that people have never seen before. It’s got a rich mythology; the characters are fantastic. The colors."
And his plan? Go back to basics. "I want to do a ThunderCats film that takes you back to that ‘80s aesthetic. I don’t want to reinvent the way they look; I want them to look like ThunderCats. I don’t want to do it live action, either. I don’t want it to look like Cats, I don’t want those kinds of issues — no disrespect to that director, whom I don’t mean to throw under the bus any more than everyone else has. I want to do a movie you’ve never seen before. A hybrid CGI film that has a hyper real look and somehow bridges the gap between cartoon and CGI. That’s the starting point, and Simon Barrett and I are getting into the script now." Read more from Wingard via Deadline.
ThunderCats will likely have to wait in line behind the likes of his planned Face/Off sequel, but Wingard might finally be the director to crack this one.