New "Zorro Reborn" movie slated to suck!

[Magus]

This seriously sounds like the worst idea FOX has come up with...since their last movie:

Originally Posted by L.A. Times

It’s been six years since the iconic swashbuckler Zorro was last seen on the screen, courtesy of Antonio Banderas and James Bond director Martin Campbell, in the period action piece "The Legend of Zorro."

But the character could be on his way back, sans swashbuckling -- and, in fact, sans the past entirely.

A reboot titled "Zorro Reborn" is being developed at Fox that will remove the character from his historical California or Mexico setting.

Unlike many of the previous Zorros (real name: Don Diego de la Vega) brandishing whips and swords, the hero of the new installment will live in the future -- specifically a desolate and post-apocalyptic one, according to a person familiar with the film who asked not to be identified. A Fox spokeswoman declined to comment.

In this version, 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."

The movie will be directed by Rpin Suwannath, a previsualization specialist who worked on a number of the "X-Men," "Matrix" and "Chronicles of Narnia" movies. (Previsualization 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.") The project, a person close to it cautioned, is in early development.

The "Zorro Reborn" script has been written by Lee Shipman and Brian McGreevy, the screenwriters behind the Dracula reboot "Harker" at Warner Bros. The Zorro film is expected to provide a juicy lead role for a young actor.

Johnston McCulley's pulp Zorro stories have served as the basis for dozens of films, starting with Douglas Fairbanks' caped-hero films of the 1920s, and then later film serials, features culled from a Guy Williams television series, a 1975 Italian-made version with spaghetti western overtones and the Banderas iterations.

In the first of those, 1998's "The Mask of Zorro," Anthony Hopkins plays an aging Don Diego de la Vega who passes the baton (or whip) to a young misfit (Banderas), who in turn becomes the new Zorro. The 2005 film, which like the first featured Catherine Zeta-Jones as Zorro's wife, Elena, followed. Both movies, made by Sony, were set in an outlaw mid-19th century California. The sequel saw a fall-off at the box office.

Dark reinventions of heroic icons have been popular in Hollywood since Christopher Nolan did just that with Batman. A "Zorro" reboot would need to contend with a new version of "The Lone Ranger," which Johnny Depp and his "Pirates of the Caribbean" director Gore Verbinski have been developing.

So basically "previsualization" is the art of coming up with fancy imagery and effects first, and then trying to make a plot fit around it. So you have the idea of a post-apocalyptic landscape first, your rad action sequences, what kind of explosions or stunts you'd like, and then you "tailor" your source material to fit it. As opposed to, you know, coming up with a compelling plot or characterization first, or something that might actually have something to do with Zorro or the idea of Zorro.

Basically, with this being the general approach to FOX's movies, I can understand why "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" was so terrible. And if previsualization is the approach they plan on taking with "Deadpool"...just...argh.

As for the fall-off at the box-office of "Legend of Zorro", I'm pretty sure the key factors of 1. having a plucky young kid character in it and 2. being generally ridiculous, I think there was something ridiculous in it involving a train, both of those factors would make it bomb quite easily.

[Bells]

the first Zorro movie with Antonio Banderas was pretty awesome, i had fun with that. The second one with the Kid, was just Silly stupid stuff... "Mr and Ms Smith" stuff.

If they want to push Zorro to the Future i could... i could even bend myself to accept that. I really could... but this, what they are describing... it's just not Zorro. It's looking really bad...

[RickZarber]

Yeah, that's not really what pre-vis is, Magus. Like... at all.

In any case, I agree that this sounds terrible.

[Flarecobra]

Unlike many of the previous Zorros (real name: Don Diego de la Vega) brandishing whips and swords, the hero of the new installment will live in the future -- specifically a desolate and post-apocalyptic one, according to a person familiar with the film who asked not to be identified.

[RobinStarwing]

What?

What?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Hollywood = SNAFUBAR (Situation Now Absolutely Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition)

*shudders, twitches, and than Dragon Slaves Hollywood*

[Krylo]

The Vault Dweller's canon name was Zorro.

[Bells]

So, is Zorro going to use a "Energy Sword"?

[Magus]

Originally Posted by RickZarber

Yeah, that's not really what pre-vis is, Magus. Like... at all.

In any case, I agree that this sounds terrible.

So they don't do it before they write the screenplay? Makes it sound slightly less horrible...

I think it was just the general emphasis on how we totally know it's going to have cool-ass special effects and so should be excited! before we even know anything about the plot other than that it's Zorro in the future. Why not talk about how the screenplay was written by someone who's really great, rather than focus on the special effects whiz behind it? It just sounded really horrible and then they went off on how it's going to have whiz-bang special effects like that makes up for it...like talk about Rpin Sunnawath's directorial abilities or ability to tell a story, over his ability to make up a cool action sequence. Zorro is worth far more than just cool action sequences, save the talk of the special effects for a franchise built entirely on them (Fast Five, Transformers, etc.)