OHHHHHHAAAOOOOOOAAAAOOOOOAAAAOOOGH!
Grab your loincloths, folks, the Lord of the Jungle is coming back to the big screen. Variety reports that Guillermo del Toro (“Hellboy,” “Blade II”) will direct a script to be written (possibly) by John Collee (“Master and Commander: Far Side of the World,” “Happy Feet”).
Since I suspect any good Tarzan movie would, of necessity, require elements of all those movies, I’m tentatively looking forward to this, but I have to wonder what new interpretation will result to differentiate this monkeyboy from Johnny Weismuller’s Ape Man (still the classic), Miles O’Keefe (who was visible onscreen at least three or four times when Bo Derek’s breasts were in profile) and Brendan Fraser (who’s “George of the Jungle” totally raised the noble savage bar, as far as I’m concerned).
“I’d love to create a new version that is still a family movie, but as edgy as I can make it,” Del Toro says in the article. “There are strong themes of survival of a defenseless child left behind in the most hostile environment.”
So in this world of reimagining cherished icons, which hostile environments would be the most entertaining in which to heave a defenseless child? Reality shows have co-opted most of the good ones, so we’ll have to improvise.
Tarzan and Corporate America
Orphaned after his parents were killed in a hostile takeover and found huddled under a conference table, the young Tarzan was formally adopted by the UniServe Company pending approval of its parent corporation, DaGongSi Industries. Despite the violent dog-eat-dog world of business life and several near-fatal attacks from the office copier he learned their odd way of speaking and quickly became skilled in interoffice infighting and computer wrangling. But a dark cloud is hovering over his future. Can Tarzan save his adopted home from the government’s overrestrictive regulatory boards? Watch and see!
Tarzan and the Electric Jungle
It is a brightly lit spot on a dark and ominous map, a shiny trap for all sane people to avoid. No one emerges unchanged, and few ever get out without some sort of crippling development deal. Yet this one child, abandoned in front of Grossman’s Chinese Theater on a lonely, premiere-less night, was raised by Hollywood actors and producers to overcome adversity, kill critics with his bare hands, and become a force for entertainment in the world despite his unfortunate and awkward Variety speak: “Star bars car! Thief leave chief alone!”
Tarzan and the Flyover States
When New York City residents Manfred Greystoke and his wife, Gloria Greystoke-Schnect, decided on a whim to drive to California instead of taking a plane, they had no idea a trucker loaded on No-Doze would make their son Byron an orphan. But he grew tall and strong in the wilds of Americana, despite the lack of Blackberry reception or any decent free pour latte art, until he was ready to face off against the bitterly sarcastic hordes of… the literati.