Buck Rogers is inching back toward the launchpad. After years of quiet, Legendary has brought in a new writer to take a swing at the long-brewing movie reboot. Yes, the character who helped shape early sci-fi is getting another shot at the big screen.
So, what changed?
Legendary — the studio behind Denis Villeneuve's Dune and the MonsterVerse — is developing a new film based on Buck Rogers. This project has been floating around since 2020 with almost no real movement in public. Now there is: Zeb Wells has been hired to write the latest draft.
Who is Zeb Wells?
If you follow the MCU, you have definitely seen his fingerprints. Wells did uncredited work on Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) and The Marvels (2023), then officially joined the writing team on Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) alongside Ryan Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and director Shawn Levy — the movie that finally folds the Merc with a Mouth into the MCU. He also served as head writer on the recent four-part, adults-only animated miniseries Marvel Zombies. In short: this is a comic-savvy writer stepping into a classic pulp sandbox.
A quick Buck Rogers refresher
Buck Rogers started with Philip Francis Nowlan's 1928 novella 'Armageddon 2419 A.D.' The premise is simple and very pulp: a coal mine inspector goes under, wakes up five centuries later, and drops into an all-out planetary war. The character quickly jumped to newspapers as the daily strip 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D.,' which ran until 1967. That shiny future — ray guns, rocket ships, towering skylines — helped shape the look of Disneyland's Tomorrowland, and Buck's success spawned plenty of imitators. The most famous copycat? Flash Gordon.
His screen history, at a glance
- 1939: Universal releases a 12-part serial starring Buster Crabbe as Buck Rogers.
- Early 1950s: ABC airs a black-and-white Buck Rogers TV series; the run was brief, and only one episode is known to have survived.
- 1979: Universal turns a feature-length TV pilot into a theatrical release, 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,' with Gil Gerard in the title role. It makes $21.7 million on a $3.5 million budget, then launches an NBC series that lasts two seasons and 37 episodes. That remains the last time Buck Rogers showed up on screens — we are talking about roughly 45 years of silence.
Why this is interesting
Rebooting Buck Rogers has been a slow burn for half a decade, and locking in a writer with recent Marvel heat is the first real sign of life. The character is a foundational sci-fi figure — a little dusty, sure, but also a big reason so many retro-future worlds look the way they do. If Legendary can thread the needle between pulp adventure and modern spectacle, there is a real movie here. For now, this update is about the script; casting, directors, and all the rest are still under wraps.