Though his first two produced scripts, Book Of Eli and last year’s After Earth, didn’t exactly score a lot of critical or, in Earth’s case, commercial love, Gary Whitta is still winning big jobs. He’s at work on one of the Star Wars spin-off films with** Godzilla**’s Gareth Edwards and has just landed the gig scripting the adaptation of Mark Millar’s Starlight for Fox{
Created by Millar and artist Goran Parlov, the new title, which hit stores in March, is a blend of **Flash Gordon **and The Dark Knight Returns. Its follows a Gordon-like space hero who saved the universe from a diabolical villain 35 years ago, but returned home to Earth to discover no-one believed his tales of derring-do.
Dining on ashes, he shrugged off the disappointment, fell in love and got married. Now, decades later, older and with kids of his own, he’s called back to action when his old rocket shows up with a warning that the enemy has returned.
Simon Kinberg, who has been helping to shepherd both Fox’s superhero efforts with X-Men: Days Of Future Past and Disney’s new** Star Wars** universe as a writer and producer, will be overseeing the work on this one alongside Steve Asbell.
Whitta’s Star Wars effort is scheduled for December 16, 2016, but there’s still no word on which character it’ll focus on. Obi-Wan, perhaps? Boba Fett? 2-1B’s medical school days? Hmm, probably not the latter. We look forward to finding out.