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After winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Get Out, Jordan Peele is pursuing a considerably different sort of project. He reportedly wants to reboot the animated series Gargoyles as a live-action movie.
Premiering in 1994, Disney's animated series Gargoyles centered around a group of medieval creatures who reside in Scotland in the year 994. When a curse leaves them encased in stone for 1000 years, their statues are moved to New York City, the curse is broken, and they wake up in a modern setting, forced to carefully adapt to their new environment. They befriend a police officer named Elisa Maza, make enemies with billionaire David Xanatos, and ultimately become local heroes. After being canceled after three seasons, the show ultimately found a second life in comic form, and now Jordan Peele has reportedly shown interest in bringing the series to the big screen.
Slash Film reported that Richard Rushfield revealed in the latest issue of the entertainment industry newsletter The Ankler that Peele is interested in adapting a feature-length Gargoyles movie. He explained that Peele had pitched a concept to Disney for his take on an adaptation, but was ultimately turned down. That said, Disney is reportedly considering reaching out to Peele about his pitch, though Rushfield is confident that Peele may be too busy with other projects if/when they come around. He wrote:
“How do you turn down Jordan Peele? Well, you can’t. Who wants to be responsible for that decision? So in the absence of a good reason to say no, but prevented by their Big IP box from saying yes, Disney is slow walking the decision. It’s hoping, it seems, that they’ll run out the clock, he’ll sign other deals elsewhere, and the project will just fade away.”
Disney has toyed with the idea of adapting the Gargoyles series into a movie, but has yet to officially pursue the project. According to Rushfield, the belief is that Peele's pitch doesn't jibe with the tone and style that Disney would ultimately be aiming for. The specifics of his pitch weren't revealed, but considering that his directorial debut (GetOut) was a horror movie, and his follow-up movie (Us) is also a horror movie, it's apparent where Disney's apprehension might be stemming from - despite the fact that the Gargoyles series is one of their more mature properties targeted at children.
Disney has been on a live-action kick in the past few years, and some of their adaptations have been considerably dark. Between Tim Burton tackling both Alice in Wonderland and Dumbo and the darker, the anti-hero focused Maleficient, Disney is no stranger to stepping away from twee, G-rated fare. In fact, Disney basing an entire standalone movie on the demon Chernaborg from Fantasia suggests that pursuing a grisly adaptation about winged creatures isn't completely out of their radar. Gargoyles (and not to mention the addition of a recent Oscar winner) could spell
