Blake Griffin isn’t worried about trade rumors. He has bigger fish to fry as he expands his entertainment footprint as a full fledged Hollywood producer. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Blake Griffin is joining forces with Jon Favreau, the producer of the Jungle Book, to help develop the sequel for the 1991 Disney film The Rocketeer.
Here are more details:
“Walt Disney Studios is developing a reboot of the 1991 action adventure movie, hiring Max Winkler and Matt Spicer to pen the script, which is being titled The Rocketeers.
The project, in the early development stages, is considered a sequel-reboot and, in a modern-day twist, will be headlined by a black female character.
Brigham Taylor, who produced The Jungle Book with Jon Favreau, is producing along with Blake Griffin of the L.A. Clippers and Ryan Kalil of the Carolina Panthers.”
The new take keeps the story in a period setting and offers a fresh view on the characters. Set six years after the original Rocketeer and after Secord has vanished while fighting the Nazis, an unlikely new hero emerges: a young African–American female pilot, who takes up the mantle of Rocketeer in an attempt 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.
Ryan Kalil of the Carolina Panthers is also listed as a producer on the project, so he is also thinking about life after sports. The new story will feature an African American woman as the new Rocketeer, so it will be interesting to see how this version of the Rocketeer will be received by the public. With Griffin’s acting skills already on display in numerous commercials, it’s a bit surprising that he is not part of the cast for the upcoming film.