Director Brad Peyton had a nice little career going for himself, making movies that the whole family (read: anyone under 6) could enjoy like Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island; but being around all of the testosterone produced by The Rock on the Journey 2 set must have done something to his head, because his next project is looking decidedly less nice.
Deadline Czarnia has word that the director has been hired by Warner Bros. to launch the next big DC Comics franchise. Which franchise would that be, exactly? The lightning-fast, Crank-inspired adventures of The Flash? Maybe a Game of Thrones-inspired look at the royal politics of the lost city of Atlantis, starring Aquaman? Nope, wrong on both counts. For some reason, Warners has decided to make a movie about DC’s foul-mouthed, drunken, murderous, intergalactic bounty hunting, 90s-era superstar Lobo.
For those not in the know, Lobo started out as a humorous takedown of the dark, violent characters that were being created at rival comic company Marvel (think The Punisher or Wolverine). He traveled across the galaxy on his space motorcycle getting drunk, slaughtering everything in his path, and using a bunch of made up cuss words like “frag” and “bastich.” Sounds silly, right? Yeah, but kids love shit like that. So, for a brief period of time, Lobo was basically the most popular comic book character in the world. What started off as a parody very quickly became a semi-serious but darkly funny and super-violent property.
Sounds like just the thing for the guy who’s been making Cats & Dogs and Journey to the Center of the Earth sequels to tackle next, doesn’t it? In addition to coming on as director, Peyton will also be giving whatever Lobo script Warners has laying around (probably from back when Guy Ritchie was being looked at to direct) a re-write. Does that mean it’s too early in the pre-production process for us to start campaigning that they cast The Rock as Lobo? Of course not.