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05-10-2008, 10:20 AM
May 8, 2008
IGN Movies reports from a longtime reliable source that classic science fiction hero Buck Rogers will return to theaters courtesy of Nu Image/Millennium Films, the outfit behind the recent revivals of Rambo and Conan.
Not only that but they report that none other than comic book icon-turned-filmmaker Frank Miller MIGHT direct it!
Miller co-directed Sin City with Robert Rodriguez and is currently making his solo directorial debut with a big-screen adaptation of another pulp hero, Will Eisner's The Spirit.
Miller is friends with Flint Dille, a comic book, TV and videogame writer and producer whose credits include serving as the story editor on the 1980s cartoon classics Transformers and G.I. Joe. Dille, according to his bio at the IMDB, inspired the name for Dillios, the lone Spartan survivor of the battle of Thermopylae, in Miller's graphic novel 300.
Dille is the grandson of John Dille, the newspaper publisher of Philip Francis Nowlan's Buck Rogers comic strips. The screen rights to the Buck Rogers character had long been held by Bruckheimer Films, who spent years developing an unrealized film adaptation, before they reverted back to the Dille Family Trust.
Flint Dille, who penned a Buck Rogers graphic novel in the 1990s, will write and produce the new Buck Rogers movie, which will be budgeted in the $40 million range. The cheapness of the low-budget effects will be a running joke in the movie, which will retain the campiness of the 1980s TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century starring Gil Gerard.
Buck Rogers has also been portrayed in a 12-part serial by Buster Crabbe and in a short-lived 1950s TV series by three different actors: Earl Hammond, Kem Dibbs and Robert Pastene.
The character has also appeared in role-playing games and videogames.
As originally conceived by Nowlan, Buck Rogers was a U.S. military pilot who falls into a coma after being exposed to a gas and wakes up in the 25th century. Later as a comic strip character, Buck -- along with allies Wilma Deering and Dr. Huer -- fought cosmic villains such as the Mongols, Killer Kane and Ardala.
Buck was updated to be an astronaut for the 1980s TV series.
Nu Image/Millennium Films report that no deal is set yet for the rights or Miller, and that they are still mulling over director contenders, with Miller being one of the options.
IGN Movies reports from a longtime reliable source that classic science fiction hero Buck Rogers will return to theaters courtesy of Nu Image/Millennium Films, the outfit behind the recent revivals of Rambo and Conan.
Not only that but they report that none other than comic book icon-turned-filmmaker Frank Miller MIGHT direct it!
Miller co-directed Sin City with Robert Rodriguez and is currently making his solo directorial debut with a big-screen adaptation of another pulp hero, Will Eisner's The Spirit.
Miller is friends with Flint Dille, a comic book, TV and videogame writer and producer whose credits include serving as the story editor on the 1980s cartoon classics Transformers and G.I. Joe. Dille, according to his bio at the IMDB, inspired the name for Dillios, the lone Spartan survivor of the battle of Thermopylae, in Miller's graphic novel 300.
Dille is the grandson of John Dille, the newspaper publisher of Philip Francis Nowlan's Buck Rogers comic strips. The screen rights to the Buck Rogers character had long been held by Bruckheimer Films, who spent years developing an unrealized film adaptation, before they reverted back to the Dille Family Trust.
Flint Dille, who penned a Buck Rogers graphic novel in the 1990s, will write and produce the new Buck Rogers movie, which will be budgeted in the $40 million range. The cheapness of the low-budget effects will be a running joke in the movie, which will retain the campiness of the 1980s TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century starring Gil Gerard.
Buck Rogers has also been portrayed in a 12-part serial by Buster Crabbe and in a short-lived 1950s TV series by three different actors: Earl Hammond, Kem Dibbs and Robert Pastene.
The character has also appeared in role-playing games and videogames.
As originally conceived by Nowlan, Buck Rogers was a U.S. military pilot who falls into a coma after being exposed to a gas and wakes up in the 25th century. Later as a comic strip character, Buck -- along with allies Wilma Deering and Dr. Huer -- fought cosmic villains such as the Mongols, Killer Kane and Ardala.
Buck was updated to be an astronaut for the 1980s TV series.
Nu Image/Millennium Films report that no deal is set yet for the rights or Miller, and that they are still mulling over director contenders, with Miller being one of the options.