THE SPIRIT team of Frank Miller and Odd Lot Ent. are close to reuniting to make a film adaptation of sci-fi property BUCK ROGERS, according to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER.
Odd Lot's Gigi Pritzker and Deborah Del Prete are in negotiations to option the rights from Nu Image/Millennium, who obtained them earlier this year from Dille Trust. Millennium will get a credit on the finished film, but will not be involved in production.
A friend of Miller, John Flint Dille runs the trust, which may have been the reason rumors started earlier this year that the filmmaker would direct a BUCK ROGERS movie. He only became attached when Odd Lot entered the picture.
The comics serial deals with corruption and redemption, two of Miller's signature themes. Miller will write and direct the film.
The story of Buck Rogers was one of the first in pop culture to examine space exploration, and began as a comic in the late 1920s, with TV and film versions appearing over the years.
A TV series was on ABC in the 1950s and NBC had a feature film and TV series in the late '70s and early '80s. At that point in time, the space explorer was imagined as someone who woke up in the 25th century to find Earth destroyed and who then had to roam distant planets.
The property rights controller has the ability to make either a movie or TV series or both. Odd Lot is only planning on a film at this time.
Miller wrote and illustrated graphic novel SIN CITY, which became a Weinstein Co. hit film in 2004. He is mulling a SIN CITY sequel. He was also behind 300 from Warner Bros. and Will Eisner's THE SPRIT, coming from Lionsgate next week.
