Gary Whitta was one of those who took a lot of heat last year for contributing to the debacle of AFTER EARTH, but that's done nothing to the spring in his step.
Whitta's writing the stand-alone STAR WARS movie that Gareth Edwards is direction, and once he's through there, he'll move on to adapt Mark Millar and Goran Parlov's STARLIGHT for the big screen.
STARLIGHT, described by one as "John Carter of Mars as an old man," is about Duke McQueen, an Earth-born hero who did the whole "exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations" thing, and settled into old age with his human family. His wife his dead and his children are grown (and estranged) when McQueen gets a distress call from deep across the galaxy, and, doing his best Dark Knight Returns impression, gets his gear and springs back into action.
Simon Kinberg, Fox's go-to guy for comic adaptations these days, is producing, but they haven't even begun looking for a director or lead to star as their Duke McQueen.
I haven't read the five issues currently available, but the artwork and premise sound magnificent, and Millar's writing is usually really self-reflexive and fun, so I'm intrigued by both the book and the upcoming film. Aside from AFTER EARTH, Whitta's only other feature writing credit is as the sole scribe of BOOK OF ELI, which had a surprisingly efficient, self-contained universe. This is ostensibly a broader, pulpier sci-fi flick, but I'm hoping Whitta can nail that cool-as-fuck quality of Millar's dialogue, while at the same time doing something that doesn't feel like something we've seen a million times (which JOHN CARTER itself had trouble with).
