Buck Rogers Origin Film Being Made

When you think about the character of Buck Rogers, you probably group him with the likes of Flash Gordon and other characters who were popular sci-fi characters in the 30s and have pretty much existed forever. So when you see that someone is making a Buck Rogers origin story it looks like Hollywood is inventing an origin story for a character that's never really needed one before because origin stories are all the rage now. (See the Flash Gordon TV show from 2007)

Turns out that Buck Rogers not only has an actual origin story that was written in 1928 in a series under the title of Armageddon 2419 AD. The series first appeared in the pulp magazine Amazing Stories and Buck went under the name of Anthony Rogers at the time. In the story, Rogers is a World War I vet who gets trapped in a gas mine and put to sleep for 500 years waking up in the year 2419. Upon awaking he discovers that the remains of what was once the United States is now at war with the massive Soviet Empire, and decides to join the cause of the United States.

This is the Buck Rogers story that the  new movie is being based on, with Buck being a "fish out of water" character in the new sci-fi future world of 2419 (Current reports are that this will still be the year that the movie takes place despite the original story being written almost 90 years ago.) Very little is known so far, but it's exciting to see that the creative drive is focused on telling the original stories of Buck Rogers in an effort to create a tent pole franchise. It's almost like it's being done out of love for the character instead of out of knowing that it's a familiar name that will sell tickets.