Taika Waititi Attached to Flash Gordon Animated Film

Taika Waititi proved his 1970s-style outer space credentials with Thor: Ragnarok, and now he’s about to apply then to Flash Gordon. Deadline reports that Fox/Disney has attached Waititi to an animated take on the feature film, looking at him to “crack” the formula to make it work. The site notes that it’s too early to know what role he’ll have, though it’s possible he may write and direct the film. He is in post-production on his adaptation of the World War II-set satire Jojo Rabbit.

Fox has been developing Flash Gordon for years, and now that the studio is part of Disney an animated take is being considered. The property was famously adapted in 1980 to a film starring Sam Jones and Max Von Sydow as Flash Gordon and his nemesis, Ming the Merciless. The property began as a comic strip in 1934, created and drawn by Alex Raymond as competition to Buck Rogers.