Breck Eisner Intends To Make ‘Flash Gordon’ Intense
Director Breck Eisner (The Crazies / Sarhara / Thought Crimes) has shared his thoughts on his proposed Flash Gordon feature film, and he doesn’t see it being anything like the camp Mike Hodges directed 1980’s version that starred Sam J. Jones and the music of Queen.
“The thing about Flash is, you’ve got to throw away the 80s version of it. I want it to be intense, aggressive, gritty and real,” he told Eric Walkuski during an interview with Arrow in the Head.
Neither does Eisner intend for Flash Gordon to be a remake, but rather more of a re-imagining for a modern audience.
“For me it’s about reinventing Flash – we’re still staying true to the adventure origins of it, and the adventurous spirit in that movie, absolutely. It’s this man brought to another planet and uniting the disperate groups on Mongo, but there is a gritty, intense, dynamic, active quality to the movie. Very modern. It’s not camp.”
The film is classed as being in active development, but with a reported release date as early as 2010, we were wondering where production was at. According to Eisner the final polished script is still a couple of months off.
“We broke story with the writers [Matt] Sazama and [Burk] Sharpless for the last five or six months or so. They went to draft just as we started shooting, and they’re going to get to me a draft at wrap. I’ll read it and do notes and we’ll do a polish on that and give it to the studio a couple months from now. Hopefully the studio will like it and we’ll go forward. It’s a big movie and the studio has got to love the script.”
Given this news a 2010 release seems highly unlikely. Further, Eisner is also attached to a re-imagining of The Creature From The Black Lagoon and it is possible that Creature could begin filming before Flash Gordon. If that scenario eventuates, Flash Gordon fans will be forced to wait even longer.
“I love them both, they’re both big movies,” Eisner said. “I think I will push both of them forward at full pedal and hope one of them goes first.”
