With Captain America getting ready to (hopefully) turn our brains into patriotic death machines fueled by kickassitude, Joe Johnston has brought up the film that proves he had the spirit to make an awesome period adventure: The Rocketeer. In an interview about Captain America, he had this to say about The Rocketeer: “I’d love to make a sequel to The Rocketeer. The film didn’t do as well at the box office as we all hoped, but it has endured and generated a following. It was great fun and I’d love to re-explore Cliff Secord’s world. If there are other comic-book heroes who have as human a story as Steve Rogers, I’d be interested. Too many comic-book movies rely on spectacle when the story is weak.”
For those that missed the film, and it was likely a lot of you, given how it was received at the box office, The Rocketeer was about a pilot who obtained an awesome jet pack and, of course, used it to fight gangsters and Nazis during the 1930s. Plus, it’s got a young, pre-breast reduction Jennifer Connelly in period clothes. If you don’t read that and say, “AWESOME!,” well, it’s been nice, but get the f**k out. There’s also the chance of a Rocketeer Blu-ray, following a Disney screening of the film with a completely remastered print. Disney’s not in the business of remaking a whole new print of a movie just to show it once, so I’d imagine a Blu-ray is coming soon, and its sales will obviously influence a Rocketeer sequel. Obviously, people still care about The Rocketeer, and you only have to look as far as yesterday’s Flix for Short to see that, but The Rocketeer never really had a chance at the box office, so I’m hoping that with Captain America‘s imminent success, we might have a glimmer of hope at visiting that world again.
[Via /Film]