By Luis Reyes
Zorro Returns to TV as a Woman Caped Crusader
A female-centric Zorro TV series is being developed for NBC as part of a first look deal between CBS Television Studios and Propagate, a production company led by Ben Silverman and Howard Owens. Zorro is being developed by Alfredo Barrios Jr. (Magnum P.I. showrunner) as a modern retelling of the black-clad masked caped crusader of old California. Barrios Jr. will write the pilot as well as executive produce the series with a female sword-wielding Zorro as the lead protagonist. (Featured photo from The Legend of Zorro 2005)
First created in 1919 by Johnston McCulley in his serialized story “The Curse of Capistrano,” the fictional aristocratic Californio Don Diego de La Vega and his alter ego Zorro has been immortalized in films, television, comic books and novels. The most recent big screen outing was The Legend of Zorro in 2005 starring Antonio Banderas and on the small screen, New World’s Zorro starring Duncan Regher, Henry Darrow and the late Patrice Martinez Camhi. A female Zorro will be a welcome new twist to the character especially in this era of inclusion, gender bending and the me too movement. Since the project is in development no casting or projected airdate has been set.
Under the same deal, Propagate is developing Home, also for NBC, written and executive produced by Jorge Reyes (Queen of the South showrunner) about a wealthy Puerto Rican family who oversees an intricate set of powerful alliances in industrial Buffalo, New York is in series development.
Ben Affleck to join Robert Rodriquez’s upcoming action film Hypnotic.
Ben Affleck joins Robert Rodriquez‘s Hypnotic, an upcoming action movie written and directed by RR. The Oscar-winning actor is cast as a detective in a mystery thriller that involves him on a hunt for his missing daughter that leads to uncovering a secret covert government operation tied to a string of near-impossible criminal heists. This is the first on-screen collaboration between actor Affleck and the auteur director.
Rodriquez is trying to accommodate the films’ schedule to the busy actor’s commitments with a planned April 2020 start of production. Affleck begins production this month on a New Regency Film Deep Water, co-starring Ana de Armas, followed by a Ridley Scott period drama The Last Duel that also stars Matt Damon and Adam Driver.
Rodriquez’s latest hit film Alita: Battle Angel starred Rosa Salazar and is now out on Blu-Ray- Digital and DVD as well as available on streaming services.
Affleck was seen earlier this year starring with Oscar Isaac and Charlie Hunnam in the South American set drug cartel heist action-adventure feature Triple Frontier for Netflix.
Hypnotic is the first project between Jeff Robinov’s Studio 8 and Mark Gill’s Solstice studios. Rodriguez and Robinov will produce together with Studio 8’s Guy Danella and John Graham