As if the dirge accompanying this summer’s blockbusters wasn’t enough a whole slew of sweet-tooth for-the-dollars films were mentioned in the online pages of Variety today in three separate stories announcing sequels, reboots and more films based on toys.
First comes word Universal Pictures has made a deal with Mattel to build a live action film around, Barbie, its signature toy line. Producer Laurence Mark said the next step will be to canvas writers and decide a creative take for a family-friendly movie based on the popular doll. Perhaps I should go review the recently released Barbie and the Three Musketeers for future reference. I wonder if Aqua will be called in for the title track.
Next comes news that Sony has stepped in where Warner Bros. stepped out and is finalizing a deal to produce a bigscreen adaptation of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, the popular action figure line from toymaker Mattel with Escape Artists shepherding the project.
When the project was last discussed, John Stevenson (Kung Fu Panda) was going to direct a script originally written by Justin Marks (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li) and then rewritten by Evan Daugherty. The film was titled Grayskull. However, rights to those scripts now belong to WB, meaning a new writer will likely be hired and Stevenson is no longer attached. Mattel wound up taking back the rights and leaving Warner Bros. after Mattel, the studio and Joel Silver couldn’t agree on the creative direction of the film.
Finally, the big kahuna, Mike Fleming is reporting that not only is the long talked about Ghost Rider 2 about to get underway with David Goyer in early talks to create the story and supervise writers for Columbia Pictures, but talk persists of Fox delivering a Daredevil reboot, a Silver Surfer film and the already announced reboot of Fantastic Four along with Universal’s continued work on adapting Sub-Mariner.
I didn’t read any of the speculative “what does it mean?” pieces all the bloggers wrote when Disney acquired Marvel, but one thing it definitely means is that everyone is now going to rush to get their respective Marvel titles in the can before the rights expire. Fleming writes:
The activity is necessary for those studios to keep the superhero properties. If the properties atrophy, they can be reclaimed by Marvel Entertainment, which happened with such properties as Dr. Strange, Black Panther and Iron Man, the latter of which languished at New Line before Marvel turned it into the self-financed blockbuster.
So basically, if a writers strike doesn’t rush a troubled project into theaters why not let business dealings do it for you. Long live quality cinema!
