In October, Deadline reported that 20th Century Fox hired Overlord director Julius Avery to write and direct their new Flash Gordon reboot, that previously had Matthew Vaughn attached before he pivoted to Kingsman: The Great Game and Kingsman 3.
There is a bit of an update on the project thanks to TheHollywoodReporter revealing that Avery has handed in the script which is being described as “hardcore” while the status of the picture is a little less known due to the merger between Disney-Fox and with Disney now taking over the film rights, where it lands is a little uncertain or if it actually gets made.
Last year, Julius Avery signed to write and direct a FLASH GORDON movie for Fox. Script is in (heard it’s hardcore) but unclear what the status is, given the Disney acquisition. Another takeaway: Disney now owns movie rights to Flash Gordon.
— Borys Kit (@Borys_Kit) March 26, 2019
While most people mostly know Flash Gordon for the 1980 film with the fantastic Queen score, the character dates back to 1934 and the classic live-action serials were one of the biggest influences on George Lucas for his franchises Star Wars and Indiana Jones, the former taking direct dues from Flash for the Han Solo character.
Overlord was a fantastic little gem and showed-off Avery’s talents for genre filmmaking and Flash Gordon is science fiction world that deserves to be re-visited.
Although NASA scientists are claiming the unexpected eclipse and strange “hot hail” are nothing to worry about, Dr. Hans Zarkov (Topol) knows better and takes football star Flash Gordon (Sam Jones) and travel agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) with him into space to rectify things. They land on planet Mongo, where the despot Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow) is attacking Earth out of pure boredom. With the help of a race of Hawkmen, Flash and the gang struggle to save their home planet.
SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
