New TARZAN movie being made (Trilogy planned)

[Dream]

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros has locked Craig Brewer into a deal to write and direct a new installment of Tarzan. Brewer has come up with a take that tells the Tarzan story over three films. He hopes the first one will be his next directing assignment. Warner Bros, which has been stymied in watching several attempts to relaunch the Edgar Rice Burroughs-created hero die on the vine, separately has screenwriter Adam Cozad working on a script that tells a different version of the man raised by apes in the jungles of Africa from infancy. Cozad's recent work includes the Jack Ryan reboot and Archangel, the pic that has Tron: Legacy's Joseph Kosinski attached. How the studio decides which film to make remains to be seen, but clearly Warner Bros is determined to revive a live action Tarzan.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/craig-brewer-makes-tarzan-deal-writing-ape-man-saga-as-trilogy/

I'm a fan of the Disney movie, so getting to see a modern take on the story will be interesting. But why does everything have to be a trilogy these days?

 

[Skywalker]

Yeah, I rolled my eyes when I read the part about the trilogy.

 

[O'Dib]

Tarzan action flicks were like the poor-man's Bond. There was a whole series of films in the 50s & 60s from the same producer, with several actors in the title role, switching out after a couple features each. Loved those as a kid. I'd prefer that approach of original stories (in which case there's more than 3 films to be made here), to that one serious take with Christopher Lambert.

 

[Christopher]

The Tarzan book series is more than two dozen books long. No reason there can't be an ongoing film franchise. It would be nice to have a Tarzan series that really makes use of the full range of concepts and characters in the books. Really, the most faithful and inclusive screen adaptation there's ever been was the Filmation animated series in the '70s, which unfortunately is in home-video limbo due to Disney's stranglehold on the Tarzan animation rights.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Well, they do get a bit repetitive. The number of lost cities he encounters makes Africa look like the Northeastern megalopolis.

 

[Klaus]

Hey, if the series is a success they could do Tarzan at the Earth's Core and spinoff a Pellucidar movie or three!

 

[Saga]

Hey, if the series is a success they could do Tarzan at the Earth's Core and spinoff a Pellucidar movie or three!

now that would be awesome.

IMO, the first three Tarzan novels are the best (though i haven't read them all yet). but a 'modern' take on Tarzan doesn't leave me with a lot of confidence (if that is what they intend).

with the John Carter movie coming out next year maybe there will be some renewed interest in ERB's novels. i think The Outlaw of Torn and The Mucker would make pretty good movies.

 

[Christopher]

Well, they do get a bit repetitive. The number of lost cities he encounters makes Africa look like the Northeastern megalopolis.

Which isn't completely unbelievable, since Africa was home to some major cities and empires that eventually fell into decline, like Great Zimbabwe in the southeast and sub-Saharan empires like Mali and Songhay. Better than the all-too-common fictional stereotype of Africa being nothing more than a bunch of jungles and wild animals and primitive villages.

Then again, Africa has no jungles of the sort depicted in Tarzan. Those are more a South American sort of thing. Some years back there was a syndicated show called Tarzan: The Epic Adventures that was shot in South Africa, and it was amusing to see the contrast between the real African savannah locations they used and the fake jungle in the soundstage. (Aside from that, though, it was one of the more faithful TV adaptations of Tarzan, though not as faithful as Filmation's version.)

 

[Temis the Vorta]

So when do people start bitching about how its racist?

 

[Sindatur]

So when do people start bitching about how its racist?

More likely to be the reverse, people complaining about the lack of faithfulness due to it's PC removal of the Racism

 

[Yevetha]

I was never into Tarzan.

 

[timothy]

So when do people start bitching about how its racist?

More likely to be the reverse, people complaining about the lack of faithfulness due to it's PC removal of the Racism

I read the tarzan and john carter of mars books back in high school. it looks like I'll have to reread them before the movies come out and what's awesome is that they are all in
e form. and I never found the books racisist in it. now mark twain on the other hand.

 

[Nerys Myk]

So when do people start bitching about how its racist?

More likely to be the reverse, people complaining about the lack of faithfulness due to it's PC removal of the Racism

I read the tarzan and john carter of mars books back in high school. it looks like I'll have to reread them before the movies come out and what's awesome is that they are all in
e form. and I never found the books racisist in it. now mark twain on the other hand.

Might wanna reread Twain or at least read up on him.

 

[Kirkman1987]

I only really know Tarzan from the Weismuller films. I'll wait for casting and more details before judging this one.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

So when do people start bitching about how its racist?

More likely to be the reverse, people complaining about the lack of faithfulness due to it's PC removal of the Racism

I read the tarzan and john carter of mars books back in high school. it looks like I'll have to reread them before the movies come out and what's awesome is that they are all in
e form. and I never found the books racisist in it. now mark twain on the other hand.

Mark Twain is not racist, and neither is Tarzan, though it's a bit easier to see why people might be confused about the latter. But the former? Cmon!

The perception of racism in the Tarzan story is a more recent phenomenon than the publication of the original novels.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I've never read the Tarzan novels, but I'm familiar with the Johnny Weissmuller movies and I don't recall anything especially racist. Unless it's racist now to have Blacks as "natives." Certainly the Whites never came off very well.

In any case, it might be nice to see some new Tarzan movies, especially if they're as high adventure and sexy as the first two Weissmullers (althugh they'll be hard-pressed to find a Jane as sexy as Maureen O'Sullivan).

And Mark Twain racist? I think not.

 

[Christopher]

Calling Twain racist is missing the whole point of his work. He was a leading emancipationist and civil-rights activist of his era. He portrayed racism frankly in Huckleberry Finn in order to satirize and condemn it, not endorse it. But ignorant people for generations have misunderstood that, because satire is too subtle for them to grasp.

As for the Tarzan books, I think they more uncritically accepted the racial assumptions and stereotypes of their age, but those aren't a central aspect of the works, not something Burroughs was deliberately embracing but just a background assumption of the culture he inhabited.

 

[23skidoo]

but a 'modern' take on Tarzan doesn't leave me with a lot of confidence (if that is what they intend).

There's nothing new in that. I'm aware of only one or two live-action Tarzan productions actually set in the period of the original novels, one of which was Greystoke, which though well-remembered today was a bomb back in the day. All the MGM films - the Weismuller films - were set in the present day; even the original Elmo Lincoln (what a name!) silent was set in modern-day and had a scene of him wearing a tux at one point. In the 1960s the Ron Ely TV series was set in the 1960s, and both the Gordon Scott and Mike Henry Tarzans at times more resembled Bond films than Tarzan. (Literally for Scott as Sean Connery played a villain in one; and I've seen Mike Henry publicity shots from his Tarzans that made him look a dead ringer for, if not Connery, at least George Lazenby.)

There may have been one or two period standalones, but I don't think previous attempts at doing so were particularly successful, so it makes sense for them to do a modern take. That'll also allow them to avoid the PC minefield by featuring "modern Africans" rather than the portrayals of the ERB novels and early movies which wouldn't sit well with today's audiences.

But as with all things, they could set it on Mars in 3425 for all I care - if they cast the right actor and get the character right, there's a lot they can get away with.

Alex

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Well, the silents of the 20s and the Weissmullers of the 30s weren't really that far removed from the present-day of the novels. By the time this new movie comes out, if it does, we'll be more than a century removed.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not sure what timeframe the Filmation Tarzan series was set in, since we so rarely saw "civilization" in it. I do remember one episode involving people in a small plane, so it would've been early 20th century at least, but I think it may have been a "period" plane rather than a 1970s one.

Damn, I wish they'd release that show on DVD.