comScore
  1. Mediaite
  2. Gossip Cop
  3. Geekosystem
  4. Styleite
  5. SportsGrid
  6. The Mary Sue
  7. The Jane Dough
  8. The Braiser

All this has happened before...

Disney Reboots The Rocketeer, We Start Work On A Rocket That Will Send Hollywood Execs To The Moon

by Jill Pantozzi | 11:49 am, August 23rd, 2012


Are we surprised? 

Fans of the 1991 version of The Rocketeer starring Billy Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Alan Arkin, and Timothy Dalton are likely to be groaning right now. Disney, similar to what they did with Tron, are making a Rocketeer for a new age.

Now that Disney’s troubled movie studio is under new management, our spies tells us that, curiously, one of the first properties to be developed for a feature film is a reboot of 1991’s thirties-set adventure film, The Rocketeer,” reports Vulture. “We say ‘curiously’ because while the property was actually a flop at the time, its similarity to the current Disney-Marvel cash cow Iron Man is more than a little striking.”

Based on the comic book character of the same name created by Dave Stevens, The Rocketeer follows Cliff Secord, a pilot who stumbles upon (and starts using to save the day) a personal rocket prototype developed by Howard Hughes and stolen by the mob. And yes, it is as ridiculously awesome as it sounds.

No other details about the reboot/remake/whatever this winds up being from Vulture besides this, “We’re told the studio will soon be meeting with various writers to come up with a take.”

Yes, no, maybe so?

(via Vulture)

Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

TAGS: | | | | | | | |


  • http://zadl.org/ Captain ZADL

    I’d like a Rocketeer TV series, but I don’t know about a new movie.

  • Anonymous

    I love the Rocketeer and would like to see more of the character. But I’m getting awfully sick of reboots. If this is a sequel/continuation like Tron: Legacy was, I’d be down for that. Not sure if I’d want to see the origin retold though. Sadly, that’s probably the route they’re going, as they’d have to introduce the character for a new audience.

  • Alana Beltzer

    The only way….only way…I am ok with this is if they keep it in the original time period. Of course, as pointed out in the article, it’ll pretty much be a Howard Stark movie. Which might not necessarily be a bad thing…

  • Scott Fogg

    I wish it was a sequel not a reboot, but I’ll take what I can get!

  • http://twitter.com/EcoBeatleGeek Eco McBeatlegeek

    Mayyyybe… I’m being cautiously optimistic about this one. I’m a huge fan of the original, but I feel like it had a lot of flaws as a movie in general (some of the acting, pacing, hilarious detail plot points), which in the right hands might be cleared up in a reboot. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe that the studio will trust the fanbase/marketability of The Rocketeer to give it anything more than a hack job. So, I don’t know. I’ll wait to see what they do with it, but I love the original so much (camp and all!) that I’m just happy to see it getting a little love!

  • Anonymous

    Christ, Hollywood. While you’re at it, I think I see some lilies in need of gilding.

  • Nick Gaston

    Why don’t they just start out with a 3D upconvert, first? It has to be cheaper, you’ll piss off the long-term fans less, and you might be able to get their kids hooked after seeing it for the first time.

  • Nick Gaston

    Maybe they’re going to try and lead up to an “Avengers”-style teamup movie of all the Disney action properties they own. Rocketeer meets Tron, maybe?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WCO5JCXARWUTWBQMXPS7NYZI7I Unicorn

    They’re only thinking about thing because Rocketeer is like Captain America + Iron Man. It’s because of money not creativity. So…. Thumbs Down, Disney!

  • Anonymous

    I think if they want to go back and reboot the franchise, they should donate the profits to hairy-cell leukemia research.  Since that’s what took Dave Stevens away from us and all.

  • Anonymous

    I really, really would love to see someone do a movie — or short film — treatment of the Marvel Noir stories.  Because the Tony Stark of that particular Marvel timeline is basically Howard Stark crossed with Indiana Jones.

  • Aly Light

     See, that’s why I think this is good news– the original film is so unknown that they couldn’t do a sequel at this point in time, but it was always meant to be a series. So a reboot means that you could actually get to see a sequel– assuming they don’t pull a John Carter.

X