Variety is reporting that Columbia Pictures has greenlit a Doc Savage film to be written and directed by Shane Black.
You might know Shane Black from such screenplays as the first Lethal Weapon and the criminally underrated and completely fantastic Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, which he also directed.
According to the Variety story, Black has a vast collection of pulp fiction novels, which means he's probably a big Doc Savage fan.
I don't know much about Doc Savage myself, but I am excited for the upcoming First Wave series which stars Doc Savage (alongside Batman and The Spirit).
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Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang really is an awesome movie. If you haven’t seen it you should check it out.
As for Doc Savage, I’ll see if First Wave gets me into the character. If it does then I’ll get excited for a movie.
I don’t know what’s with the huge push for Doc Savage here lately. It seems like anyone describes him, it starts with "I don’t know much about him, but…"
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was pretty good, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so apathetic about a DC or Marvel movie announcement.
@Slockhart: Where’s the huge push for Doc Savage beyond DC putting out a bunch of books starring him?
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang also had a lot of ties to pulp fiction, so i’m hoping that indicates a fondness for the material. Curious as to whether this will be a period piece or a modern revamp.
Either way, I’m down with it.
This has — sadly — been not as newsworthy, but I think it’s really important to note that author Paul Malmont is actually writing the first arc of the "Doc Savage" series spinning out of Azzarello’s First Wave mini-series. Malmont wrote a fantastic celebration of pulp authors in The Chinatown Death-Cloud Peril, which focused on the creators of The Shadow and Doc Savage, spinning them into a pulp-like adventure story.
@Conor
Sure, it’s nothing like the ridiculous push Deadpool is getting, but for a character most comic book fans don’t even know, a movie, an ongoing, a mini, and it seems like something else is a pretty big push.
It feels like DC is digging at the bottom of the barrel to see which B/C-listers will stick (Spirit and Jonah Hex movies, most of Wednesday comics, Deadman showing up a lot, etc.). Nothing wrong with that, I kinda like it in fact. I think it’s just the fact that I’d never heard of Doc Savage before the Batman/Doc Savage Special that makes it seem like they’ve plucked him from nowhere and are going full speed ahead with him.
@Slockhart: Doc Savage may not be a character that many people have actually read, but he has a really high name recognition factor. I’ve known there was a character naked Doc Savage out there in the ether for my entire life. For not having been actually read much, he’s fairly famous. As the article said, he is possibly the mot famous pulp hero of all time.
Genuinely thrilled about this one. I love Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and agree with Dave about that film’s sensibility being a good indication of Black’s fondness for this kind of material.
I’ll be following this one closely.
Naked Doc Savage?? Sign me up! O, the sexiest of typos!
Not too long ago I found a really nice series of Doc Savage reprints, let me see if I can find the company’s website…here we go:
http://www.vintagelibrary.com/pulpfiction/characters/Doc-Savage.php
I grabbed one on impulse at a Half-Price books. It’s fun stuff.
Hell yes! I cannot wait. Shane Black has a good track record that I trust him with the material. I loved Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and would love to see him do a film version of the Monk and Hamm bickering. I agree with Conor in that he may not be well known to the general audience, but that might not be a bad thing!
Imagine Shane Black doing Doc Savage and Sam Raimi doing The Shadow? We’d get a pretty good wave of pulp heroes coming to film. I love pulp heroes and I love Doc Savage so this is great news for me!
I know 0 about Doc Savage. But I wonder why Columbia has this movie and not DC Entertainment/WB.
Ah this is awesome, Shane Black on anything I’m down for (Monster Squad, KKBB, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Predator) it’s aaaaallll awesome, and if they let him do his thing, we’re going to get a great movie.
Awesome news. I’m a huge fan of Blake’s films, both written and directed. I think this will be a good match. Can’t wait for it.
Not a fan of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang; didn’t really click with me.
But it seems like this Shane Black guy has a lot of knowledge of pulp fiction and action films in general. (He better know the latter if he did 4 Lethal Weapon films) Never read anything about Doc Savage though…..Should be an interesting film.
Doc Savage was basically the original Superman. The character has roots going back decades and decades. For those of us who came to comics as a replacement for the pulps, this is huge . . . if they do it right.
@Slockhart Doc Savage isn’t a B or C lister. He isn’t even a comic book character (though he’s had a lot of comics)… he sprang from the Pulps in the 1930’s and has been in print ever since.
“She said why’d you say it twice?I said I didn’t.”
@slockheart to add onto what hawkboy mentioned about Soc Savage actually being a pulp hero (who actually isn’t owned by DC but is more like a seperatelu liscensed character via Green Hornet or the Lone Ranger I believe) the spirit movie wasn’t put out by Warner Bros., but rather Lion’s Gate for possibly the same reason: DC owns or holds the publishing rights for the comics
@TNC: I agree with twitter now, you don’t like anything good. :p
Also, AFAIK, Doc Savage is public domain. Like Sherlock Holms. Not a DC property.
@ TNC: Black was only involved with the first two Leathal Weapon films. 3 and 4, nothing to do with him, which may explain some things.
Look at Batman in that poster….is he packin’? (hint: guns)
Domestic Gross for a Doc Savage Movie
Over or under $50 Million
@ Smasher: Well let’s first see who it stars and what the marketing push is. There’s no way to tell what the gross will be just because of the director signed on or even the character.
I’m excited to see this movie. Doc Sampson as @chrislatray mentioned Sampson is one of the archetypes for Superman. I really like the resurgence of Pulp and Noir stuff in the last 5 or so years (I’m not exactly sure when it started only when I started noticing).
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is one of my all-time favorite movies. You don’t want to know how many times I’ve seen that. Can’t wait for this one now!
I’d really like to see a remake of Doc Savage. Yes, Doc Savage did have his own comic book run, and he also was made into a previous movie (although it was a bit cheesy, it still has its legion of fans). The character influenced other characters like Superman to Indiana Jones to others. I really hope the movie sees fruition and is well made.