More than seventy years after his creation, the iconic Flash Gordon is finally coming to the big screen. Well, again. What started as a comicstrip and movie serial in the 1930s was adapated into a TV series in the 1950s, a feature film in the 1980s, and most recently, another TV series in 2007 on the Sci-Fi Channel. Variety reports that the deal being negotiated by Sony Pictures Entertainment is for "high six figures against seven figures if the film gets made.
King Features Syndicate optioned the Flash Gordon property to Universal four years ago with Stephen Sommers (The Mummy) and Bob Ducsay slated as producers. Now that the property is in the hands of Sony, Neil Moritz is attached as producer with Breck Eisner (Sahara) directing. "In the wake of 'Iron Man's' success, studios are showing a heightened appetite for branded fare that could be made into a franchise. Deal comes two weeks after Nu Image/Millennium Films acquired film rights from the John Flint Dille Trust to mount a live-action feature based on the classic property 'Buck Rogers.'"
In the original comicstrip, Flash Gordon struggled against Ming the Merciless on the planet Mongo. Gordon's explots were a significant influence on George Lucas in the creation of Star Wars. Flash Gordon's publicist, however, is vehement Gordon and Lucas had a falling out before the creation of Episode 1 and that the resulting prequels were "concoctions of Lucas's ego and ether-induced hallucinations."
