Sony has secured the rights to the 1930s comic strip Flash Gordon with plans to adapt it into a live-action movie.
Sahara director Breck Eisner is set to helm and executive produce the planned adaptation, with Neal Moritz producing.
Sony’s big-screen version of Alex Raymond‘s comic strip, first published in 1934, will be the latest incarnation of the Flash character, who had previously been brought to life on screen several times, most notable by Buster Crabbe in the 1930s film serials and again in 1980 by Sam J. Jones. More recently, Flash Gordon was played by Smallville‘s Eric Johnson in the now-cancelled Sci Fi Channel television series.
In the original comic strip, Flash was a Yale graduate and Polo player who, along with Dale Arden, is kidnapped by the mad scientist Dr. Hans Zarkov and taken to the planet Mongo where the evil ruler Ming the Merciless plots to destroy the Earth.
[Source: Variety]
