It’s hard to overcome playing batmanbut George Clooney may have a chance. The Oscar-winning actor, producer and director is joining writer Brian K. Vaughan do Buck Rogers, a limited series on the timeless and high-impact science fiction character.
According the Hollywood Reporter, while Clooney and production partner Grant Heslov is on board the product strictly as producers at the moment, the show is being developed with an eye for potentially starring Clooney. Legendary (the company behind the next Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong) obtained franchise rights last year and at first I figured it would start with a movie that would lead to TV adaptations. Now, however, that has changed and the franchise will begin with this limited “prestige” series written by Vaughan that, if successful, could become both a film and an anime series.
Buck Rogers was created by Philip Francis Nowlan in the late 1920s and has lived in magazines, comics, radio, television and movies ever since. He is a worker and ex-soldier who was preserved by mistake in time only to be resurrected several centuries later. Once awake, he finds himself in a strange future, where he emerges as a hero. The modern film version of Captain America is an obvious wink to the story.
Clooney certainly has that other generation’s heroism that would be needed to play the worldly and confident Rogers. And his last film, The midnight sky, seems to suggest a newfound adoration of science fiction. This, plus Vaughan’s words, makes us think that the winner is written on it – if, in fact, it happens.
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