I’ve thought once or twice that it would be a cool idea if Zorro were somehow made modern.  Obviously the swordplay would be gone, but given the right take, a masked crusader based on the character with a modern twist was something I wouldn’t mind checking out…if it was done well.  Seems someone else had the idea…sort of.  Instead of a modern version of The Fox, there’s going to be a future version of him, in a film to be titled Zorro Reborn, says the LA Times’ 24 Frames. The scuttlebutt is that Fox is working on post-apocalyptic setting for Zorro, where he will be less a caped crusader for justice than a one-man vigilante force bent on revenge, in a western story that has echoes of both Sergio Leone and No Country for Old Men.

Said to helm the project would be freshman director Rpin Suwannath, a pre-visualization expert who’s previous credits in that area include some of the X-Men, Matrix and Chronicles of Narnia flicks.  This is perhaps a new trend with Fox as they;ve already hired another pre-vizzer, Tim Miller, to direct Deadpool.  Screenwriters, Lee Shipman and Brian McGreevy, who did the upcoming Dracula re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-boot, Harker, have produced a script.  I’ll reserve judgment until I see more, but I can’t help going back to another artist who got his first theatrical directing gig on a big-ticket movie: Robert Longo.