Disney to reboot “The Rocketeer”?

Posted by Terri Schwartz on August 22nd

Disney seems to be digging back into the archives, and it now looks like the studio will again try to adapt “The Rocketeer.”

“Captain America: The First Avenger” director Joe Johnson has been trying to get a sequel to the 1991 flop up and running for years now, but to no avail. But now Vulture has learned from some inside sources that Disney is developing a return to the ’80s comic book series created by David Stevens under the direction of new studio chief Alan Horn.

We definitely believe this is the case, but we’ll wait until Disney confirms the development on the project before start jumping to conclusions. “The Rocketeer” tells the story of a racing pilot named Cliff Secord who stumbles across a rocket-pack prototype that had been created by Howard Hughes. There are plenty of comparisons that can be made between this story and “Iron Man,” which started Marvel Studios on its path to greatness back in 2008.

Some of the most successful projects to come out of Disney in the past few years have been from their subsidiaries: Marvel, Pixar and The Muppets. Since the studio hasn’t done well with its own new projects this year (“John Carter” barely made back the money it cost to make), it could be that Horn wants to focus instead on developing lucrative projects without the help of its various divisions. Up next the studio is releasing “Oz: The Great and Powerful,” “The Lone Ranger” and “Maleficent,” among others, so it seems like “The Rocketeer” would fit well among those genre films.

Are you intrigued by a “Rocketeer” remake? Tell us in the comments section below or on Facebook and Twitter.