Taika Waititi's Flash Gordon movie will be live-action. Created in 1934 by illustrator Alex Raymond and writer Don Moore, Flash Gordon was originally a comic strip intended to compete with another popular sci-fi comic, Buck Rogers. Flash Gordon followed the adventures of its titular character, a graduate of Yale and a famous polo player, along with his two companions Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov, who travel to the planet Mongo via rocketship to confront its evil emperor known as Ming the Merciless.
Flash Gordon has been adapted to live-action two times already, one a 1980 space opera starring Sam J. Jones as the titular character and Max von Sydow as the main antagonist Ming. The other was a less popular television series that aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2007. Flash Gordon saw a resurgence in popularity in 2012 after Seth MacFarlane’s hit comedy Ted starring Mark Wahlberg. Since then, 20th Century Fox had been trying to get a reboot off the ground to little success, but once Disney secured the rights, Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi was hired to develop an animated Flash Gordon movie.
Now, according to a Collider exclusive, Waititi's Flash Gordon movie will be live-action instead. Producer John Davis broke the news during an interview for Disney’s recent big release Jungle Cruise. Davis says that Waititi is writing the film, but hasn’t signed on to direct quite yet. However, the producer feels confident he can secure Waititi as the director since this is a huge passion project for him. Davis said:
"Taika is writing it. It was a movie that was a huge influence on him growing up. It is one of his favorite movies. He initially said to me, 'Let's do it animated.' I said, 'Okay.' Then we got into it and started developing it and he said, 'No, let's do it live-action.' I said, 'Even better.'"
Waititi has multiple projects lined up that will keep him with Disney for the foreseeable future. His soccer-centric film Next Goal Wins is finished and waiting to be released by Searchlight Pictures, a subdivision of Walt Disney Studios. His follow-up to 2017’s Ragnarok, Thor: Love and Thunder, finished production in May and is currently in post. This is not to mention the upcoming Star Wars movie he will be directing and co-writing with Krysty Wilson-Cairns.
It’s fitting that a live-action Flash Gordon movie is on Waititi's plate now as well, given its influence on George Lucas’ iconic space opera as well as his own work on the Thor series. Since he has not even begun writing the Flash Gordon movie yet, there is currently no timeline for when it will begin production, let alone set a release date. Given that Waititi is currently in such demand as a filmmaker, and is no slouch as an actor either, it may be a while until he can carve out some time in his schedule for Flash Gordon.
Source: Collider