George Clooney is heading to the 25th century.
Through his production company Smokehouse Pictures, Clooney has signed on to executive produce a new limited series for Legendary based on the classic sci-fi character Buck Rogers, Variety has confirmed. Clooney will executive produce with partner Grant Heslov. A rep for Clooney says the actor-director is only signing onto the project in a producing capacity, and will not star, contrary to other reports. Legendary had no comment.
Brian K. Vaughan (“Under the Dome,” “Y the Last Man”) will write the series. Smokehouse is joining Angry Films heads Don Murphy and Susan Montford as producers, as well as Flint Dille, the grandson of the creator of the serialized comic strip that made Buck Rogers a household name in the 1930s. The series does not currently have distribution.
Rogers first appeared as Anthony Rogers in the August 1928 issue of the seminal science fiction magazine “Amazing Stories,” in a novella titled “Armageddon 2419 A.D.” by Philip Francis Nowlan. A WWI veteran, Rogers becomes trapped in a coal mine and enters into a state of suspended animation, until he’s revived nearly 500 years later and finds himself in a war-torn landscape of what was once the United States.
In 1929, the character was rechristened Buck Rogers and adapted into the comic strip “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D.,” published by the John F. Dille Co. From there, the character rapidly became a sensation, with comic books, toy lines, radio dramas and serial movie adaptations throughout the 20th century. The rise of sci-fi franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek, however, caused the franchise to fall out of favor; the most recent high-profile adaptation was a 1979 NBC series that lasted for two seasons.