Disney is doing a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. They made the best decision of their mousey lives buying Marvel, but they let Pixar go and made ‘John Carter.’ We can add something else to the dumb idea list with the rumored plans of theirs to produce a reboot of the ‘The Rocketeer.’
‘The Rocketeer’ was one of the secret comic book movies of the 90s. Those films that people didn’t know were comics or old radio serials like ‘The Shadow’ and ‘The Phantom.’ It was directed by Joe Johnston and was perfectly campy and firmly set in the 1920s. Johnston tried to recreate this campy feel in ‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ which work well for the first half but the action of the second half felt flat and boring.
Campy is still fun, but for a big budget action film, we as an audience need big budget action. I don’t see ‘The Rocketeer’ working right now. I think if it had a big blu-ray release that kids would love the 90s version, but a reboot would not find an audience. Kids don’t like superheros that do not have cartoons/toys/video games. This is the exact reason why ‘John Carter’ flopped so horrendously.