Nu Image/Millennium Films has acquired the rights to create a live action Buck Rogers movie from the Dille Trust, which is controlled by the surviving members of the originator of the Buck Rogers comic strip John F. Dille.  Disney has held the rights in recent years, but the Dille family has decided it could have more control by assigning the property to a smaller company.  Nu Image/Millennium is the same company that nabbed the rights to create a live action Conan from Paradox Entertainment and now has a Conan project set up at Lionsgate (see “Conan Film Gets Distributor”).

While reporting on the story Variety indicated that sources at Millennium specifically denied earlier reports at IGN, which had Frank Miller set to direct the latest screen incarnation of Buck Rogers. 

From its origin in the pulp science fiction magazines to its tremendous success as a newspaper comic strip, and radio show, to a Hollywood run that has included serials, TV series, and movies, the Buck Rogers property has a rich history that spans more than eight decades of American popular culture—and it is apparently a property that is about to undergo a serious revival. 

Recently Dynamite Comics announced a new Buck Rogers comic book series (see “Dynamite Doesn’t Pass on This Buck”) and Hermes Press has just announced the September 15th release of a deluxe 9”x12” 336-page hardcover, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Volume One ($39.9) reprinting two years of the classic newspaper comic starting the first strip, which appeared on January 7th, 1929.  Hermes Press plans to issue a new volume of dailies every five months and one volume of full color Sundays a year—a scheme that should see the entire Buck Rogers comic strip series reprinted over a five-year span.  Pop culture historian Ron Goulart will provide the introduction to the first volume.