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The Zorro remake has cast an interesting lead…

May 11th, 2016 by Irwin Fletcher Comments

movie-news-banner-copyZorro reboot

Have you watched Antonio Banderas’ The Mask of Zorro recently? What about the sequel, The Legend of Zorro. One came out in 1998, the other in 2005. Seven years apart, but they’re both terrible. They weren’t quite terrible at the time of release, but they’ve aged horribly. Camp, bland and nowhere near as charming as they want to be, the franchise has been in the toilet for a decade ever since Banderas’ last outing.

But wait, there’s life in the classic character yet. 20th Century Fox are working on a Zorro reboot that will re-team the formidable director/actor pairing of Gael García Bernal and Jonás Cuarón. The film is titled and, according to Deadline, will be released later this year.

We’ve been reporting on this for a while and wonder if the new movie will be the futuristic adventure we’ve heard so much about (here).

Jonás is the son of Academy Award winner Alfonso, who most recently directed space thriller Gravity and Bernal is one of the most dependable actors out there, recently scooping a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his role in the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle. He has also starred in Babel and The Motorcycle Diaries, the latter earning him a BAFTA nomination.

“I have always loved Gael for this role,” said Amin via Deadline, who is producing with Lantica’s Albert Martínez Martín. “Zorro is a hero who is charming, witty and clever. Gael possesses all those characteristic and he’s able to deliver them with a modern spin to introduce the Zorro character to a new audience.”

Along with 20th Century Fox’s reboot, Sony had been planning big things for the character, including a tantalising crossover with Quentin Tarantino’s Django Freeman from Django Unchained, played by Jamie Fox.

According to several emails coming out of the massive Sony hack in 2014 between Tarantino and Sony chairwoman Amy Pascal, a Zorro/Django crossover was very much part of conversations. As per Pascal’s email:

HELLO AMY P HERE…
HOW ARE YOU? I WANNA TALK ABOUT
DJANGO/ZORRO WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE IT …
ALSO I STILL WANNA DO THE DION BROTHERS
AND JUST BECAUSE I DIDN’T GET TO BE A
PART OF HATEFUL DOESN’T MEAN IM EVER
GONNA STOP WANTING TO WORK WITH YOU
(AND HARVEY)
BEST ALWAYS…AMY

Tarantino responded saying it could have been really fun. Of course, the idea was an extension of Tarantino’s work on the sequel comic series, released by Dynamite Entertainment and DC Comics in 2012.

Here’s the comic synopsis, according to Dynamite Entertainment:

Set several years after the events of Django Unchained, Django/Zorro #1 finds Django again pursuing the evil that men do in his role as a bounty hunter. Since there’s a warrant on his head back east, he’s mainly been plying his trade in the western states. After safely settling his wife, Broomhilda, near Chicago, he’s again taken to the road, sending her funds whenever he completes a job. It’s by sheer chance that he encounters the aged and sophisticated Diego de la Vega – the famed Zorro – and soon finds himself fascinated by this unusual character, the first wealthy white man he’s ever met who seems totally unconcerned with the color of Django’s skin… and who can hold his own in a fight. He hires on as Diego’s “bodyguard” for one adventure and is soon drawn into a fight to free the local indigenous people from a brutal servitude, discovering that slavery isn’t exclusive to black folks. In the course of this adventure, he learns much from the older man (much like King Schultz) and, on several occasions, even dons the mask and the whip… of The Fox!

We don’t know if we’ll ever get that Django/Zorro crossover but, hey, the Zorro reboot is shaping up very nicely indeed! Are you excited for the Zorro reboot? Let us know!

Source: Squareeyed

I'm an LA journalist who really lives for his profession. I have also published work as Jane Doe in various mags and newspapers across the globe. I normally write articles that can cause trouble but now I write for FTN because Nerds are never angry, so I feel safe.