He's brought out the hidden lives of vampires with What We Do in the Shadows. He's taken on Marvel with Thor: Ragnarok. He's gearing up to take on Star Wars with his own feature film. So what could possibly be next for Taika Waititi in the already eclectic career that even featured him playing Hitler? (Don't worry, it was a comedy.) He's going back to one of the grandparents of sci-fi itself, Flash Gordon.
That's right, Waititi is set to write for an upcoming reimagining of the classic space tale that inspired countless science fiction stories, including Star Wars itself. It's a franchise that many don't remember while many others only remember thanks to that almost illegally catchy Queen song. Hey, at this point, it's no more outlandish than Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
The thing is, this isn't exactly a new project. Waititi signed onto the project 2 years ago, and back then it was planned as an animated film. But apparently, priorities changed as production moved along and he eventually floated the idea of changing to live-action. It's a good thing they decided that early on. Imagine animating half a movie only to discover the higher-ups want to do live-action instead. The best they could hope for is a Roger Rabbit or Space Jam situation at that point.
Producers and first name bros John Davis and John Fox, who are also attached to the film, spoke about the change during a recent interview surrounding Jungle Cruise, which the duo also produced. "[Waititi] initially said to me, 'Let's do it animated.' I said, 'Okay,'" Davis explained to Collider. "Then we got into it and started developing it and he said, 'No, let's do it live-action.' I said, 'Even better.'" Amidst that sea of quotation marks, there lies a crazy glimpse into Waititi's thought process, and it's more than enough to make any fan of his work excited.
Flash Gordon, originally created as a comic strip by Alex Raymond way back in 1934 to compete with the similarly-themed Buck Rogers, has seen a number of attempts to break its way into the mainstream through many films over the years and even a Sci-Fi Channel series in the mid-2000s. Arguably the most successful was the previously mentioned 1980 film Flash Gordon, which featured a theme song by Queen (and coincidentally alleged to be The Queen's favorite movie) but didn't receive much positive attention until it reached cult status years later.
So at the very least, Waititi and the rest of the team aren't in much danger of angering legions of fans due to Flash Gordon currently enjoying roughly the same level of popularity as a room temperature beef stew. So maybe a new spark behind it is exactly what this fossil of a franchise needs to make everyone remember where so many of their favorite sci-fi movie tropes came from. At the very least, it'll probably make for some quality banter material.
Flash Gordon is currently in development.
Source: Collider