With IRON MAN 3 already looking like a guaranteed blockbuster, director Shane Black will now have a blank check to pursue projects he had difficulty getting off the ground before. One of those is the long in development movie of the old DOC SAVAGE pulp novels and radio dramas. The last we heard of Black’s attempt to film DOC SAVAGE was way back in 2010. But, during press for IRON MAN 3, he told Collider this:
“Well Doc Savage is proceeding on pace. I mean we’ve got to try to set a deal now to go back into that, so as Iron Man wound down I sort of reconnected with Sony who have been gracious to say, ‘We’ll wait a year and sit on these rights until you’re finished with this other picture that we don’t control.’ So they were really cool about it, they were really nice. So yeah I’m back on it.”
Producer Neal Moritz also said that Black is 100% still writing and directing DOC SAVAGE and they are trying to make it his next movie. For those unfamiliar with DOC SAVAGE, here is how the character was described by writer Lester Dent:
“He rights wrongs and punishes evildoers.” Dent described the hero as a mix of Sherlock Holmes’ deductive abilities, Tarzan’s outstanding physical abilities, Craig Kennedy’s scientific education, and Abraham Lincoln’s goodness.”
DOC SAVAGE is one of the few remaining characters from the pulp era of comics and novels who has not gotten a big screen treatment in recent years. His last big screen outing was a b-movie from 1975 starring Ron Ely. But, if you look back at those that have, not many have fared too well at the box office. THE SHADOW and JOHN CARTER are a couple that never materialized into franchises. While INDIANA JONES and THE ROCKETEER are influenced by the genre, both were contemporary creations. Doc Savage has the potential to be huge, especially if handled by a writer as adept as Shane Black.