Some projects just aren’t meant to escape development hell no matter how hard anybody tries, and it was beginning to look as if Disney’s attempts at reinvigorating The Rocketeer were doomed to fail.
Joe Johnston’s dramatically underrated pulp classic flopped at the box office after barely exceeding its $40 million budget in ticket sales, but at least it eventually found a reputation as one of the most unfairly overlooked and egregiously unsung superhero movies of the last 30 years.
Plans for a reinvention first arose in 2012, and since then the likes of James Wan, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse‘s Peter Ramsey, The Old Guard‘s Gina Prince-Blythewood, and Devotion‘s J.D. Dillard have come and gone, with David Oyelowo the most recent name attached as star and producer as part of his two-year development deal with the Mouse House.
As revealed by The Wrap, though, The Rocketeer might actually end up happening this time after Eugene Ashe was hired as the project’s writer. Of course, recruiting a scribe is no guarantee that any production will even get close to the starting line never mind make it across, but it’s a positive development nonetheless.
Does it stand a chance of living up to the original? That’s entirely up for debate, but we’re never going to find out unless The Rocketeer V2.0 finally casts off the shackles of development hell and makes it onto the screen. Whether it does or doesn’t, one of the most stop-start reboots in recent memory has nonetheless gathered some genuine momentum for what feels like the first time in a long time.