We’re just as baffled as you are, but Marvel Studios announced over the weekend that Ant-Man has been put on hold in favor of a reboot of the 1986 film “Howard the Duck”, widely viewed as one of the worst science fiction films ever produced.
Edgar Wright, originally lined up to direct Ant-Man, insists that just as his vision of Ant-Man would be an action film with some humorous elements, so will Howard The Duck (tentative retitle Howard Duckman) and will focus on more action sequences while retaining the “whimsy and overtly trite dialog of the original”.
No casting announcements have been made, but Deadline Hollywood in its reporting on the reboot identified actor Nicholas Cage as a likely candidate for the title role, saying “he’s one of the few actors in Hollywood whose career won’t be hurt if this film bombs as the original did.” Ouch.
Far more interesting is that the ever-busy Guillermo del Toro sent out a cryptic one word tweet this morning: “Howard.” Later attempts to find it in his twitterstream reveal that it’s been deleted. Spilling the beans early? We can only hope.
In any case, we’re darn surprised that of all the films to have another shot at, Howard the Duck? Retitled, reimagined, it’s still hard to imagine a film that’s described on IMDB.com as
A scientific experiment unknowingly brings extraterrestrial life forms to the Earth through a laser beam. First is the cigar smoking drake Howard from the duck’s planet. A few kids try to keep him from the greedy scientists and help him back to his planet. But then a much less friendly being arrives through the beam…
is a good candidate. But then again, it’s impossible to figure out what the bigwigs in H’wood are thinking, so we’ll just have to see how the project progresses.
If this seems too good to be true, it is! HAPPY APRIL FOOL’S DAY!
