Taika Waititi Confirms Live-Action Adaptation of ‘Flash Gordon’

Taika Waititi‘s adaptation of Flash Gordon is officially set to be developed as a live-action film, though the movie was originally meant to be an animation.

Producer John Davis recently spoke to Collider regarding the shift of the film becoming live-action, “Taika is writing it. It was a movie that was a huge influence on him growing up. It is one of his favorite movies. He initially said to me, ‘Let’s do it animated.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ Then we got into it and started developing it and he said, ‘No, let’s do it live-action.’ I said, ‘Even better.’”

He adds, “We’ve been through the development process, not the writing process, but he’s laid out in great detail the characters, the movie, the way in, what it’s about, the tone, all of that stuff, right? And I can’t wait. And we’ll wait for him. Hopefully, we’ll get… Look, he does a lot of movies, right? Believe it or not, he can do a couple of movies a year.”

The new announcement arrives almost two years after Disney tapped Waititi for the project in 2019. The film is set to be based on the 1930s comic strip by Alex Raymond. Raymond was known for creating the character to compete against Buck Rogers. Flash Gordon‘s story begins with the Earth threatened by a collision with the planet Mongo. Gordon’s companion Dr. Zarkov invents a rocket ship that will fly into space to stop the disaster. Gordon and another friend Arden are recruited for the team to stop the collision but are faced with an issue when they meet with Ming the Merciless, Mongo’s evil ruler.

There is no set date for the release of Flash Gordon just yet.

In other entertainment news, Snowpiercer is confirmed for season four.