George Clooney may return to space after announcing that he has joined the team to put together a reload of the classic science fiction series Buck Rogers.
The Hollywood Reporter writes that the project, written by Brian K Vaughan of Under the Dome, could be a “lead role” for Clooney, who will be executive producer of the series.
The character Buck Rogers is a war veteran who falls into a coma and wakes up in the 25th century. The success of a film from the late 70’s is followed by a TV series starring Gil Gerard as US Army Officer and Erin Gray.
Rogers first appeared in the 1920s before becoming a mainstay in the 1930s, with early radio, TV and film adaptations, all before 1950.
Clooney is in the prize contest for another post-apocalyptic sci-fi project in the guise of Netflix’s The Midnight Sky. He joined the project as executive producer, along with his Smokehouse Pictures partner Grant Heslov, while Flint Dille – the grandson of original Buck Rogers publisher John F Dille – will produce.
Attempts have been made to revive the Rogers franchise, with Frank Miller, the author of the Sin City comic, becoming the filmmaker and announcing in 2008 that he was working on the story, but it has yet to do so. never seen the light.
Earlier reports say the recharge would return to the character’s first appearance in the 1928 story, Armageddon 2419 AD, where Rogers is introduced as a World War I soldier trapped by a cave while strangely in an abandoned coal mine in Pennsylvania.
In the story, Rogers is exposed to radioactive gas and wakes up almost 500 years later in the 25th century, helping a resistance force to retake the US, which has been taken over by a conquering force.
The original TV show from the seventies was part of a boom in the nostalgia-fueled stream during the pandemic. It forms part of the series on Forces TV, the commercial arm of the British Forces Broadcasting Service, a charity that provides TV and radio for members of the military.