Variety reports that Stephen de Souza, who wrote Die Hard and 48 Hours, is scripting a new film based on Lee Falk's classic comic book hero The Phantom.  Unlike the lackluster 1996 Paramount adaptation of The Phantom that featured Billy Zane and a campy 1930s setting, the new Phantom film will be set in contemporary times and incorporate the grittiness and even some of the technology of modern hits like Spider-Man and The Matrix.

 

Producer Ashok Armitraj of Hyde Park told Variety, 'I don't think the other movie (the 1996 version) will hurt this one's prospects overseas.  The major thing is to put him (the Phantom) in a contemporary setting with the weapons and gizmos and 'Matrix-style' stuff, which wasn't done in the previous film.'