New ZORRO REBORN film to be set in the future?
Zorro is getting the reboot treatment thanks to 20th Century Fox. This time the masked swashbuckler may be headed to the future and possibly without a sword? Six years ago, Antonio Banderas starred in The Legend of Zorro directed by Martin Campbell. Fox's reboot is titled Zorro Reborn and will be directed by Rpin Suwannath from a script by Lee Shipman and Brian McGreevy.
Typically Zorro (real name: Don Diego de la Vega) rides his black steed throughout California and Mexico fighting evil with his whip and sword. In the reboot he lives in a desolate and post-apocalyptic future, according to the LA Times. No confirmation is available at this time from Fox. According to the Times, the new "Zorro will be less a caped crusader for justice than a one-man vigilante force bent on revenge, in a western story that has echoes of both Sergio Leone and No Country for Old Men."
Suwannath is a previsualization specialist who worked on a number of the X-Men, Matrix and Chronicles of Narnia movies. Previsualiation is "the Hollywood art of conceiving and generating images, usually for an effects-driven movie, before filming has begun. Visual-effects specialists are hot generally, with Fox recently setting the viz kid Tim Miller to direct Deadpool." Shipman and McGreevy wrote the screenplay for Warner Bros. upcoming Dracula reboot, Harker. Zorro Reborn is expected to provide big lead role to a young actor and is said to be in the early stages of development.
The original Zorro films were based on Johnston McCulley's pulp Zorro stories, and have been spawned dozens of films. The first film starred Douglas Fairbanks in the 1920s, and then later film serials. Banderas starred in two Zorro films, 1998's The Mask of Zorro, and 2005's Legend of Zorro. Both movies, made by Sony, were set in an outlaw mid-19th century California. The first film was fairly successful while the sequel had a decline at the box office.
I am a huge fan of dark gritty films like Zorro Reborn sounds. I am a huge fan of Christopher Nolan's take on the Batman franchise for that ver reason. If a dark revisioning can be done for Batman, then why not Zorro. Who would you like to see play Zorro? What are your thoughts of this news?