According to the Hollywood Reporter, Crusader Entertainment and Hyde Park have commissioned Olympic gold medal-swimmer turned screenwriter, Mel Stewart, to pen a new film script based on Lee Falk's classic adventure comic strip The Phantom.  Only seven years ago, Billy Zane, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kristy Swanson, and Treat Williams starred in a film version of The Phantom, which earned a modest $17 million at the box office.  Unlike the 1996 version, Stewart's new script for The Phantom takes place in the present day, not in the 1930s.  Although The Phantom does wear a skintight purple suit and fights tirelessly for justice, he has no real superpowers -- and updating the character should be fairly simple since the 'role' of The Phantom has passed from father to son through the ages. No word yet on whether this new version of The Phantom will be set in Africa, as were most of Falk's Phantom adventures and a good deal of the 1996 movie.

While Crusader Entertainment's commissioning of a screenplay represents an investment in the property, a new Phantom film is far from a done deal at this time--but with a good script and continuing audience acceptance of the superhero genre, it remains a distinct possibility.