Fantastic Voyage Remake Sets Sights On Man Of Steel Writer David Goyer

By Nick Venable | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

fantastic voyage(poof)

That was the sound of sci-fi movie fans’ faith in humanity going up in smoke. Another remake that few people wanted has found a screenwriter with one of the more uneven resumes in Hollywood. The long-gestating update of Richard Fleischer’s 1966 family adventure Fantastic Voyage has injected Man of Steel‘s David Goyer into its bloodstream to write the script treatment and executive produce. Can’t somebody sink this project for good already?

Though Fox is one of the studios behind it, it’s Lightstorm Entertainment’s James Cameron—you might have heard of him—who has been spearheading this one for years, but there hasn’t been much talk about it since Night at the Museum‘s Shawn Levy left it behind some years back. Goyer could also potentially fill that director’s chair, but it looks like they just wanting to utilize his storytelling skills for now.

Set during the Cold War, the original Fantastic Voyage follows a scientist named Jan Benes who has figured out a way of shrinking people, and tries defecting from the Soviet Union with a CIA agent. Their car is attacked and Benes hits his head, causing a blood clot to form in his brain. And you know what’s coming. A bunch of scientists are miniaturized along with a submarine, and they’re put into his bloodstream, with a mission to take down that blood clot the only way they know how. Science!

This concept was also used in comedies like Innerspace and, to a lesser extent, Honey I Shrunk the Kids. But this remake still exists for some reason, and has seen writers come and go, including Shane Salerno (Savages), Laeta Kalogridis (Terminator: Genesis) and Cormac and Marianne Wibberly, who wrote the National Treasure movies. On the director side, Levy wasn’t even the first, Paul Greengrass and Roland Emmeric preceded him. An Emmerich/Goyer collaboration would probably bring cinema to its knees, it’s exploded and currently-on-fire knees.

Honing his craft for fantastical action in the 1990s on films like Dark City and Blade, Goyer really made a name for himself working with Christopher Nolan on the Dark Knight trilogy, which got him the Man of Steel movie and the upcoming Batman vs. Superman. (And probably Justice League and a hundred more DC Comics movies after that.) He success on TV has been spotty, with Blade: The Series and FlashForward failing to make it past one season, but his historical fantasy Da Vinci’s Demons is doing well on Starz.

Do you guys think this project has merit, or does it come up a little short? (Ba dum chee.) Through the trailer below, relive a film that features a Raquel Welch that you could fit inside your pocket.