Matthew Vaughn Negotiating To Direct ‘Flash Gordon’
By Russ Fischer/April 15, 2015 9:40 am EST
The original 1934 Flash Gordon comic strip, by Alex Raymond, was created to steal away some of the Buck Rogers audience, and saw Raymond’s hero Flash Gordon stranded on the planet Mongo along with lady friend Dale Arden thanks to the weird machinations of Dr. Hans Zarkov. On Mongo, they meet all manner of pulp/sci-fi characters while always combating the planet’s ruthless ruler, appropriately dubbed Ming the Merciless.
The 1980 movie, directed by Mike Hodges and starring Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Topol, Max von Sydow, Timothy Dalton, and Brian Blessed, leaned heavily on the pulpy original stories and outlandish characters of Raymond’s early comic strips, with a lot of ’80s-era flash thanks to a score by Queen and then-modern effects. (The film was an example of a serpent eating its own tail, as it was designed to capitalize on the success of Star Wars, which had originally taken significant influence from Alex Raymond’s work.) It wasn’t a hit by any means, but has endured thanks to a genuine campy appeal.
We don’t know what direction this new film will take, but having Vaughn on board is a pretty good indicator of tone, as he is quite consistent in his method of blending action, violence, character, and comedy.
