Hey folks, Harry here... THE ROCKETEERS is a thing. The Son of the Fonz is writing it. Seriously. For reals. Max Winkler and Matt Spicer are in the midst of writing the sequel to the original Joe Johnston ROCKETEER. A film that Disney cut the budget on, then put it out on a weekend versus not just ROBIN PRINCE OF THIEVES but also CITY SLICKERS. We should've already had 5 ROCKETEER sequels, but the execs at the time had zero faith. When I sat down with Joe Johnston on the set of THE WOLFMAN, he told me about a planned action sequence that was supposed to be shot at Graumann's Chinese Theater, but when Disney decided to cut the budget, the entire elaborate sequence was dumped. And there was more.
Real movie geeks have always loved THE ROCKETEER, before this modern age of marvels constantly appearing at our local theaters, THE ROCKETEER was a bright light of hope. So close to greatness it hurt and with the best fucking score around.
So - what do we know about ROCKETEERS - this new thing. Apparently it will take place 6 years after the other film. Hollywood Reporter got the full scoop:
The new take keeps the story in a period setting and offers a fresh view on the characters. Set six years after the original Rocketeer and after Secord has vanished while fighting the Nazis, an unlikely new hero emerges: a young African–American female pilot, who takes up the mantle of Rocketeer in an attempt to stop an ambitious and corrupt rocket scientist from stealing jet-pack technology in what could prove to be a turning point in the Cold War.
This is quite exciting, especially if Disney does it big. Please dear lord make use of the original score at some level. It is... pure magic.
Keep it cool,
Harry
