Sixteen years ago, it was announced that Shane Black – who wrote or co-wrote Lethal Weapon, The Monster Squad, Lethal Weapon 2, The Last Boy Scout, Last Action Hero, and The Long Kiss Goodnight before directing Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 3, Edge, The Nice Guys, The Predator, and the newly released Play Dirty – was set to write and direct a film based on the pulp magazine hero Doc Savage. Black was attached to the project for several years and even had Dwayne Johnson on board to play the title character… but he never managed to get it into production. During a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Black confirmed that he would still like to make a Doc Savage movie, but he also knows that it’s likely to be held back by budgetary issues.
Doc Savage, whose real name is Clark Savage Jr., is a polymathic scientist, explorer, detective, and warrior who “rights wrongs and punishes evildoers.” The character was first introduced in the pages of Doc Savage Magazine back in 1933.
Asked if he has any projects he would like to circle back to, Black answered, “I’ve always loved Doc Savage. It’s based on ‘30s pulp, and he was the OG superhero. His name was Clark [Savage Jr.], and he was literally described as a “super man.” So the first Doc Savage [in 1933] was before Clark Kent/Superman [in 1938]. He was the inspiration behind a generation of comic books and pulps and wonderful shit. So I would love, at some point, to revisit that. The problem is that the IP is not a household name. It’s much easier to fund something at that level of expense if it has Batman or Superman attached, as opposed to something that is going to be just as expensive and is less of a household name.” Who would he cast if Dwayne Johnson has moved on from his superhero days? “I don’t know. The problem is that it has to be someone that you can approach a studio with and say, ‘It’s going to be $150 million. Minimum.’ Doc Savage is about an entire world of adventure, and it’s a ‘30s period piece. I wouldn’t want to modernize it. So, yeah, I would look into finding a way to do that, but I still don’t have an actor in mind. It would have to be someone compelling enough to get the studio to loosen up those purse strings for us.“
Development on a screen adaptation of Doc Savage began in the 1960s, and in 1967, Chuck Connors was attached to play the character in a film called The Thousand-Headed Man. Unfortunately, it was killed by rights issues before filming could begin. A film called Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, starring Ron Ely, was sent out into the world in 1975, and there were plans to follow it with a sequel and/or a TV series, but the film was poorly received, so those plans were scrapped. Doc Savage projects have since passed through the hands of Arnold Schwarzenegger (who considered making a film with director Chuck Russell and screenwriter Frank Darabont) and Sam Raimi (who would have paired Doc Savage with other pulp heroes like The Shadow and The Avenger), but those didn’t go anywhere.
Are you a fan of the Doc Savage character, and would you like to see Shane Black bring him back to the screen? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
The comment section exists to allow readers to discuss the article constructively and respectfully, focused on the topic at hand.
What’s Not Allowed