Unperturbed by the crappy returns on THE LEGEND OF ZORRO only a decade ago, Lantica Media and Sobini Films are putting together a flick around the titular hero, only this time…in the future!
Sure enough, we knew that Fox was working on a ZORRO REBORN with Ricardo de Montreuil (who directed a proof-of-concept piece you can see below), but this project is totally unrelated. It’ll be called Z, will take place in the near-future as opposed to post-apocalypse, and will be directed by GRAVITY screenwriter (and son of Alfonso) Jonas Cuaron.
Cuaron is recently made his directorial debut on DESIERTO, an desert-set indie with Gael Garcia Bernal and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and will follow it up with this ambitious, undoubtedly larger-scaled action project. He also directed that short film about the Inuit who speaks to Sandra Bullock’s character at the end of GRAVITY.
Cuaron, aside from playing a part in his father’s award-winning film, is of Mexican descent, which, to my knowledge, would be the first time someone from Zorro’s home country will actually helm one of his stories in an American film. It should be interesting to see the pulp hero portrayed through the eyes of someone who is from his nation of origin, let alone someone who helped write one of the best sci-fi flicks of the past few years.
I don’t know how well the Zorro myth translates when taken out of early-to-mid 1800’s California (still then under Mexican rule), but if Cuaron’s got the right sense of scope, action, and (quite importantly) casting, then this could show the elasticity of the almost 100-year-old character, and launch a new series around this new incarnation of the masked hero.
Just don’t make his mentor white this time, please? Anthony Hopkins in bronzer is awesome, but still Anthony Hopkins in bronzer. Maybe see what (the admittedly Spanish) Antonio’s up to these days…
