When Disney announced a couple of months back that it was bringing back The Lone Ranger, with Jerry Bruckheimer to produce and Johnny Depp to star as Tonto, we guessed it was only a matter of time before other iconic heroes of the Wild West got their shot at the silver screen.
And, sure enough, today comes news that Mark Canton – producer of 300 – is behind a move to give Hopalong Cassidy his own movie.
Canton has teamed with Pterodactyl Prods. for the movie, which will reboot a character that featured in no fewer than 66 movies (and you thought James Bond was pushing it with 22) that starred William Boyd, and which ran from the Thirties through to the Fifties.
Hoppy, a creation of Clarence E. Mulford, actually started life as a bit of a rogue, before coming over all clean-cut for the transition to movies. A white-haired do-gooder who bucked trends by wearing a black hat, which normally denoted villains, Cassidy would travel the Wild West with his horse, Topper and – like Dr. Who – a revolving roster of companions, including the wonderfully-named Windy Halliday, California Carlson, and Speedy McGinnis.
We’re guessing that, with names like that, that Canton’s take on Hopalong Cassidy won’t be a dark, gritty Western in the vein of Unforgiven, but something much brighter and sunnier.
"We're looking to ring in the modern age with a branded, well-loved hero that we approach in a fresh way," is all Canton would say to Variety on the matter. We wouldn't be surprised, though, to see this one move quickly in an attempt to beat The Lone Ranger into cinemas.