Amidst a series of interviews to promote his Romero remake, THE CRAZIES, Breck Eisner has spilled a bit about his next project, FLASH GORDON which he promises “will take a long time to make.”
The script by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless is already in its second draft, and he says it’ll be in the studio within a month or two. But as for when we’ll see the actual film? It could be awhile. Eisner elaborates while talking to Movieline:
“It’s not a remake of any movie that’s been done before. Nothing to do with the camp of the ’80s, nothing to do with the serials of the ’50s. It’s definitely based on the Alex Raymond strips from the ’30s and ’40s, told from the point of view as if he was redoing the strips today. The audience that was reading the strips back then was a very different audience that today’s audience. It’s an action-adventure, very dynamic, aggressive, with a really strong central character.”
“it’s a gigantic movie, so these things are tough to get made… Sony’s got to commit big money to it and love it, and there’s going to be years of prep. It’s a lot of work! But if we can pull it off, I think it would be quite fantastic.”
I really did appreciate THE CRAZIES as I wasn’t even sure there WAS such a thing as a good horror remake these days, but I think we have to look back to Eisner’s last big-budget endeavor, SAHARA, which racked up expenses of up to $280M when all was said and done, making it one of Hollywood’s biggest financial failures of all time. Hopefully he’s learned his lesson this time around (he says in the interview he has), and I have to say, that’s one trusting studio he’s got there.