After 25 years, The Rocketeer will once again take flight on the big screen. But this new Rocketeer isn’t anyone that you’ve seen before! And we’re talking about it all on today’s Nerdist News!
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney’s Rocketeer reboot will be called The Rocketeers, and it will introduce an African-American female character who will step up to become the new Rocketeer after the original hero, Cliff Secord, disappears during World War II. Given that the title is The Rocketeers, we wouldn’t be at all surprised if Secord shows up later in the story to formally pass the torch. But since the time frame is only six years after the original film, it may mean that Billy Campbell won’t reprise his title role.
All we know about our new leading lady is that she is also a pilot, and that she becomes the Rocketeer to protect the jetpack technology from “an ambitious and corrupt rocket scientist” at a potential “turning point in the Cold War.” Disney hired screenwriters Max Winkler and Matt Spicer to write the new script as a way to differentiate The Rocketeers from Marvel’s Iron Man. And yet it looks like Marvel still beat them to the punch, since it was recently announced that a black teenage girl named Riri Williams will soon be taking over the role of Iron Man from Tony Stark.
There could be some timely examination of social unrest and segregation given that the movie would take place in 1944, the year following the inception of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first all-black brigade of fighter pilots, and the most successful of WWII. To our knowledge there were no female fighter pilots, black or white, but that’s what’ll make the movie so cool!
The Rocketeer is based on a comic book by the late Dave Stevens and is considered to be a classic. Joe Johnston directed the 1991 cinematic adaptation of The Rocketeer, which was not a success upon its initial release. However, that movie has gained a massive following which helped convince Disney to revisit the franchise two decades later.
What do you think about Disney’s new take on The Rocketeer? Let’s discuss in the comment section below!
Image: Disney
