Superheroes are the biggest business in Hollywood and have been for over 20 years and counting, but that most definitely wasn’t the case back in the early 1990s. Sure, Tim Burton’s Batman had changed the face of cinema forever at the end of the previous decade, but nobody seemed to care at the time that The Rocketeer was one of the best comic book adaptations ever made.
Enthusiastically greeted by critics at the time and widely-lauded for its old-fashioned sense of adventure, explosive set pieces, and deft tonal balance between pulpy serial and straight-faced action-packed blockbuster, Joe Johnston’s phenomenal flick nonetheless cratered at the box office after earning less than $47 million against a production budget of $40 million.
However, The Rocketeer‘s reputation has only grown in the years since, and it’s now comfortably capable of being called one of the most underrated costume-clad crimefighting capers there’s ever been. Naturally, then, Disney has been trying to get either a reboot or legacy sequel off the ground for a decade, but it’s never gained any serious momentum.
Plans for a new spin on the mythology were first mooted in 2012, with James Wan hinting that he would be interested in directing. Four years later, a full-fledged reboot dubbed The Rocketeers was announced, and it would take place six years after the original. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse‘s Peter Ramsey was linked, as was The Old Guard‘s Gina Prince-Blythewood, but it didn’t happen.
Devotion‘s J.D. Dillard was the most recent attache, but he ended up dropping out in November of last year, and we haven’t heard a peep since. Maybe it’s still on the cards, but if the same project keeps failing repeatedly, then perhaps it’s best to leave it alone. The Rocketeer is fine for what it is, and not everything needs to be franchised into the ground.