Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire director Adam Wingard has revealed that his take on the beloved 1980s cartoon Thundercats is still being developed – one of several high-profile projects he’s attached to.
Adam Wingard is out and about doing the press rounds for Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire which releases here in the UK at the end of this week (29th March). Naturally, one of the questions that Wingard has faced regards the order of his upcoming slate, given that he’s got quite a list of projects to cherry-pick from.
Taking a glance at the projects that Wingard has been publicly attached to over the last couple of years reads like a wish-list for any blockbuster filmmaker with a penchant for action. There’s Thundercats, a long-gestating take on the humanoid warrior cats that were so popular in animated form during the 1980s; there’s a sequel to Face/Off, the revered 1997 John Woo movie; there’s an adaptation of the Robert Kirkman comic book series, Hardcore, and the possibility of a return to Kong and Godzilla for a trilogy-closing bout of monstrous mayhem.
First airing in 1985, Thundercats was all about a group of muscular cat-people who, having wound up on an alien planet, repeatedly clash with an undead – and very shouty – villain called Mumm-Ra. Despite the enduring popularity of the series – and its frankly brilliant intro sequence, which we’ve included below – we’ve never yet seen the characters make it to the big screen.
Wingard then, boasts quite the slate, which means some of those films could be a long, long way down the road. When recently quizzed by Comicbook.com about the state of his Thundercats movie, Wingard confirmed that the project is very much alive, although given his years-long commitment to the Godzilla X Kong films, things haven’t yet developed past the scripting stage:
“Simon [Barrett, writer of The Guest] and I are still actively working on the script. We finished our last draft basically right when I was going into production on [The New Empire] and we just had to put everything on hold. Right now, we’re actively working on it again. So whether that means that’s the next thing I do or…I’m not sure. But it’s definitely one of the top priorities I have right now in terms of working on a script.”
Wingard has talked in the past about wanting to keep the 1980s aesthetic, as well as creating a film with a hyper-real look. That’s clearly all on the horizon, though, as it seems like it may be some time before a final draft of the script is in place. Even if a finished script does exist, the director has openly discussed in the past his desire to make a third Godzilla x Kong film and should New Empire prove to be a money-spinner, you can imagine that Legendary Entertainment and Warner Bros will be quick to block out Wingard’s availability for the next couple of years.
For Thundercats fans, at least they know that the project is still alive, even if it seems like it may be some time before anything stirs regarding the project.
