There’s a reason they call him “The Man.”
Stan Lee (born Stanley Lieber) is a legend, a writer who – in a relatively short period in the middle of the 20th century – co-created many of the most significant pop culture icons of our time. In collaboration with artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, to name only a couple, he introduced the world to characters like Spider-Man, The X-Men, Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Doctor Strange and The Silver Surfer, and brought pre-existing characters like Captain America and Thor back to prominence. For decades Stan Lee has been a hero to comic book fans and, ever since the surge of popularity in the superhero movie genre at the turn of the century, a household name.
In short, it was only a matter of time before Stan Lee became the subject of a movie. While a serious drama about an up-and-coming writer with nothing to lose, co-creating a series of colorful characters on absurd deadlines might still one day be produced, at the moment 20th Century Fox is planning something very different: an action movie, about Stan Lee’s adventures in the 1970s.
Hollywood Reporter reports that the studio is developing a feature film in the vein of the Roger Moore-era James Bond movies, in which Stan Lee himself goes on a series of adventures. No writer or director has been attached, nor is there even an official name for the project yet, although one imagines that the studio is considering some of the obvious frontrunners, like Excelsior and True Believer, both of which became Stan Lee’s catchphrases over the years. (The could also simply call the film The Man, after Stan Lee’s nickname, but that one has already been taken, and more than once.)
Transforming the life of a real person into a fictional adventure is, of course, nothing new. Horror author Edgar Allan Poe solved a series of murders based on his writings in the 2012 thriller The Raven. Abraham Lincoln hunter vampires in the aptly-titled Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Sci-fi author H.G. Wells built a time machine and traveled to the 1970s to fight Jack the Ripper in Time After Time. The list goes on and on.
Top Photo: Santi Visalli/Getty Images
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved, Rapid Reviews and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
