Around the time of Ready Player One‘s release in 2018, news surfaced that Steven Spielberg would soon be embarking on his first superhero movie, a DC Comics adaptation of Blackhawk, the WWII-era leader of a team of fighter pilots known as the Blackhawks. Spielberg was to produce and possibly direct, based on a script by frequent collaborator, David Koepp. Not much has been heard about it since, and Spielberg moved on to do West Side Story and his upcoming Meet the Fabelmans.
But now Koepp is talking about Blackhawk again in an interview with Collider, and he says the movie could still happen…
“We have a script that’s very good and we all think it’s very good. There were a lot of management changes at Warner Bros, so I think we’ve just been kind of waiting for that to settle down, and for them to decide what they want to do with their DC Universe. Obviously I hope he does it or if he doesn’t direct it, I hope he produces it, someone great directs. Because it would be a great deal of fun. I’m very fond of the script and I hope it comes together. But again, that’s one of those movies that’s gonna need $200 million so, trying to get those whales off the beach is a big process.”
Would Blackhawk be part of the DCEU, though? Given the 1940s setting, it’s always possible for it to be a standalone similar to Joker and The Batman. But then again, Wonder Woman was set during WWI, and in the comics a female member of the Blackhawks known as Lady Blackhawk exists in the modern era and was part of the Birds of Prey.
Koepp, however, still thinks it would be tough to have the film share continuity with Wonder Woman, Aquaman, etc…
“It would be hard because it’s 1941 or 1940, actually. So it would be a little tricky. As we were developing the script, we said ‘Hey, let’s make one great movie. It’s 1940, that’s the way it is.’ And if it works out and in the future they decide they want to unite anybody, I’m sure time travel will not be a problem. Because comic books have a great way of figuring that stuff out. ‘We need Wonder Woman to be there!’ Fine. Well, then she can, because of the ‘Prometheus Portal’. I’m like ‘what’s the Prometheus Portal.’ ‘You don’t know about the Prometheus Portal?'”
We’ll see what happens, but the thought of Spielberg doing a DC Comics film is too good to pass up on. Make it so!
