The Four Color Media Monitor

I almost missed this recent news on Collider about Alex Raymond's famous space comic, Flash Gordon, getting adapted anew for the screen. But it turns out it's going a well-trodden path that's way too easy:

Two years ago, Taika Waititi was hired to take a crack at an animated Flash Gordon movie, but in a recent interview timed to the release of Disney's Jungle Cruise, producer John Davis told Collider that the project is now being developed as a live-action film.

"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.'"

Seriously? How is making it live action infinitely better? I ask as somebody who got frustrated with over 2 decades of blockbuster movies swarming with special effects, CGI or otherwise. Once, I saw Brendan Fraser's Mummy movie from 1999, and today, it gives me such a headache with all the irritating FX, while the story and performances were lacking in meat. I don't want to see it ever again. To me, such films came to symbolize what's gone wrong with modern-made sci-fi cinema.

And don't be shocked if the Flash Gordon movie in preparation will suffer only so much political correctness without offering anything thoughtful. Even an animated film, admittedly, could fall victim to wokeness.

Even more recently, there's been news of a new live action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and according to Hollywood Reporter, it's on none other than Netflix, in a sign something's rotten in Denmark:

Nearly three years after being picked up straight-to-series, Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender is coming into focus.

A year to the day after original series creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko parted ways with the streaming giant following creative differences (and for a lucrative overall deal with ViacomCBS), Albert Kim (Sleepy Hollow, Nikita) has been tapped to take over as showrunner on the series. [...]

After discovering the original Nickelodeon series with his young daughter, Kim fell in love with the franchise and hopes to use his perch as showrunner on the live-action take to “reimagine” and grow the storylines in the beloved franchise while also establishing a “new benchmark in representation.”

“This was a chance to showcase Asian and Indigenous characters as living, breathing people. Not just in a cartoon, but in a world that truly exists, very similar to the one we live in,” Kim said of his vision, while also stressing that there will be surprises for existing fans and those new to the story.

With all the social justice propaganda and other political correctness they've already been pushing, this could turn out to be pretty crummy, even as a cartoon. For now, it follows a trend of believing only a live action fare will appeal to the wide audience, which is laughable in the long run in an era where identity politics have taken precedence over merit.

Labels: animation, comic strips, licensed products, msm propaganda, politics