"Pulp Hero Flash Gordon May Be Headed Back to the Big Screen " Topic

"Eighty years after his creation and following multiple television and film adaptations, 20th Century Fox has reportedly scooped up the rights to bring Flash Gordon back to the big screen. Considering the pop culture property land-grab that is Hollywood tentpole filmmaking, it was inevitable that eventually the pulp comic hero would be in the running again, but Gordon's been done before. A lot. So the inevitable question is: Will this one do it right?

So far all that's known about the new project is that veteran producer John Davis will be handling the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter, and up-and-coming Star Trek 3 scribes J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have signed on to do the script. Not a bad pedigree, but not a lot to go on either. But even though little is known about the new adaptation, a lot is known about past incarnations of Flash.

The first came just two years after his creation by cartoonist Alex Raymond in 1934 and had the high-flying football star headlining a serial starring a bottle-blond Buster Crabbe. That was followed by a live-action television series in the 1950s and several animated adaptations in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. There was even a notorious 1974 porn parody called Flesh Gordon—which was popular enough to merit an edited R-rated re-release and is a remarkably faithful homage to the old Crabbe serials…"
Full article here.
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Amicalement
Armand

I am a HUGE fan of the Alex Raymond comics (as well as some of his others like Secret Agent X-9 and Jungle Jim). The three serial adaptations with Buster Crabbe, despite some wandering away from the comic strip "scripts" are the most faithful to the "feel" of the Alex Raymond scripts. I just don't see that naiveté, strong black-and-white moral underpinning, or fun adventurousness selling well in Hollywood these days. Look how badly Lucas mangled Indiana Jones in the fourth movie!! Crap sells and makes money, so there seems to be little incentive for Hollywood movies to do any better. I could be wrong, but I have little faith that this will be either a) faithful to the Raymond story or b) any good in its own right even when not compared to the comics. I'd prefer they leave the old classics in peace and do something novel instead. There are thousands of great sci fi short stories written every year and thousands of great old science fiction radio shows that would make good movie adaptations. Why keep mangling the classics?

Buck

Flesh Gordon was a scream. Dr Flexi Jerkoiff, Dale Ardent and the Evil Emperor Wang.

Woudl like to see Flash again also. Alex Raymond's work was fantastic.

With Buck on this one the old serialized stuff on the radio was very 'pulp' cool.
I've absolutely no faith in Horrorywood as is, I'd feel more inclined if even Bollywood redid the old goodies.
Heck them Scientological (Sic larf) weirdos will ruin any decent Sci fi anyway, (one of my pseudo conspiracy myths 8_D. Here's hoping and cheers all.

hahahah, and I was going to say my favorite was the cartoon shown on Saturday morning cartoons in the late 70's – early 80's.

I'm disappointed in Wired. What science fiction or pulp fan doesn't know that the original Flash was a polo player, not a football star? Certainly anyone writing about the history if the franchise should have done the modicum of research required to find that out. Geez, even just googling the name would have been enough. The 1980 film made him a quarterback. And while I do love that film, I think it missed the mark on capturing the comic strip's tone, which was all about high adventure, not high camp.

But setting all that aside, I'd love to see a faithful adaptation that captures Raymond's grand vision (for all its great visuals and terrific set and costume work, the DDL production feels "small" compared to the strip).

In some ways, the best Flash Gordon film is the original Star Wars…

Then there was the 1980's sequel,"Flesh Gordon Meets The Cosmic Cheerleaders".

I'm with Buck and Zargon on this. We'll go in to the theatre looking for the best and come out having watched a Mother-Space episode about how the earth was saved from pollution, orbital debris and man-made solar flares. I'm ordering a case of eye bleach now to get ready.

I just realized we already had the updated Flash Gordon run for ten years… Stargate SG1!
Jack is Flash, Sam is Dale, Daniel is Dr. Zarkov, and Tealc is Prince Barin/Voltan. Ming gets replaced by the Goauld. Yes, the characters are different, but the overall plot and story arc are darn close to what you would have in a Flash Gordon serial.

(I flashed on this, pardon the pun, when I was speculating on a possible plot for a Flash Gordon movie. I was thinking, "So, Ming sets an asteroid on collision course with Earth… no, wait, Anubis already did that…" And that's when it all clicked.)