‘The Rocketeer’ is Finally Getting a Sequel!

Twenty-five years after The Rocketeer blasted off into theaters, Disney is finally getting around to making a sequel, called The Rocketeers.

The original film starred Billy Campbell as a 1940s flying ace who stumbles across an experimental jet pack, designed by Howard Hughes himself, and uses it to stop a Nazi plot against the backdrop of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Directed by Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger) and featuring innovative visual effects – which still look great today – The Rocketeer is considered one of the best superhero movies ever made, even though it wasn’t a major hit when it was first released in 1991.

But the cult of The Rocketeer has grown over the years, and it seemed like only a matter of time until Disney – which also owns Marvel Studios – got around to capitalizing on all that good will, and added the character back to their roster of ongoing superhero films.

Disney

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The Rocketeers is still in the early stages of development, but Hollywood Reporter reports that the film will take place six years after the original, which took place in 1938. The first Rocketeer goes missing while fighting the Nazis, and the mantle is taken up by a young woman, an African-American pilot. She will use the iconic jet pack to “stop an ambitious and corrupt rocket scientist from stealing jet-pack technology in what could prove to be a turning point in the Cold War.”

The report doesn’t clarify that more than one person will wear a jet pack in the sequel/reboot, but the title certainly implies that it would be a possibility.

The Rocketeers is being written by Max Winkler and Matt Spicer. The comic book that the films are based on was created by Dave Stevens in the 1980s as an homage to the pulp heroes of the 1930s and 1940s, and who seemed to draw much of the hero’s inspiration from Commando Cody, a character who wore a very similar jet pack and helmet in a series of popular movie serials.

 


William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved, Rapid Reviews and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.

 

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