"Flash Gordon" pace quickens with scribes (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - "Flash Gordon" is moving ahead at breakneck speed.

Sony has signed scribes Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless to write the script for a new take on the outer space tale, just a few months after winning rights to the title from Hearst.

"Flash Gordon" centers on a young polo player who is kidnapped and taken to the distant planet Mongo, where he and companions Dale Arden and Hans Zarkov embark on a series of adventures fighting a ruler named Ming the Merciless.

Sonys "Flash," a live-action film, follows in a 75-year tradition across many media for what began life as Alex Raymonds comic strip; the property was a movie serial in the 1930s, a Sam Jones-toplined feature in 1980 and a recent Sci Fi Channel series.

Sazama and Sharpless are penning the vampire tale "Dracula Year Zero" for Universal, and "300" director Zack Snyders "Cobalt 60."

The new "Flash" originally had been set up at Universal, but rights reverted to Hearsts King Features Syndicate after the project sat in development for several years.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter