Can Taika Waititi save every one of us? The jury’s out on that one, but he is boarding the Fox/Disney attempt to make a new Flash Gordon movie. According to Deadline, Waititi is jumping aboard the film in some capacity – the site has heard he’s writing and directing, but no one is confirming that yet – and that the eventual movie will be an animated adventure that rockets Flash back to his 1930s comic strip origins while side-stepping some of the overt camp of the 1980s film. Still, with Waititi involved, we’d imagine there will be some style and comedy present.
Flash is one of those characters studios just keep coming back to. He’s been adapted for TV series, the aforementioned Queen-soundtracked film and a slightly more po-faced show that ran for one season on the US SyFy network and Sky over here. Various filmmakers were attached to crack a new movie through the years, including Matthew Vaughn and, more recently, Overlord’s Julius Avery.
Whether Waititi ends up sticking around, having recently left stop-motion pic Bubbles, about Michael Jackson’s chimp, remains to be seen – he is, after all, one of the most sought-after names in Hollywood.
Next up for the director is World War II satire_Jojo Rabbit_, which will be out on 3 January next year, and he's about to kick off work on the new_Akira_live-action adaptation.