Krull being rebooted by J.J. Abrams.

[Alex]

I don't personally feel that this one needs a reboot, but here it is.

If you're worried that J.J. Abrams wants to reboot everything you loved when you were younger, the good news is that not many people loved this movie until long after it was deemed a box office bomb. Our trusted and proven sources tell us that J.J. Abrams, the guy who helped revive the film franchises for Star Trek and Star Wars, is attached to direct a reboot of the 1983 sci-fi/fantasy flop Krull for Warner Bros.

    We've exclusively learned Warner Bros. is rebooting the 1983 cult classic Krull with J.J. Abrams attached to direct.

If you're not familiar with Krull then — depending on where you land — you're either missing out on a 1980s classic, or one day you can move on to the next life knowing at least two hours of your current life were spared. Clearly hoping to ride the coattails of bigger genre hits of the day, Krull is a sci-fi/fantasy fusion with a simple fairy tale premise: the princess is kidnapped, and the prince and his allies go on a quest to save her.

Ken Marshall plays Prince Colwyn, who wields the most visually memorable part of Krull: the five-pointed glaive.

The film didn't exactly turn Marshall into a superstar, but it does feature appearances by at least two actors who would later become much more well known.

    Clearly hoping to ride the coattails of bigger genre hits of the day, Krull is a sci-fi/fantasy fusion with a simple fairy tale premise: the princess is kidnapped, and the prince and his allies go on a quest to save her.

Colwyn meets up with a group of bandits who he wins to his side. One is played by a very young Liam Neeson, and another is played by the late Robbie Coltraine (though his voice was dubbed over by
Critics hated Krull, box office receipts failed to make back its $30 million production budget, and any dreams Ken Marshall may have harbored about becoming a blockbuster leading man were dashed. Years later, Marshall would earn himself a well-respected spot in the Star Trek franchise as Michael Eddington, a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine character who begins as a recurring pain-in-the-butt and eventually graduates to recurring villain.

The news of Warner Bros. rebooting Krull with J.J. Abrams attached is interesting for a number of reasons. On one hand, it isn't Warner Bros. who produced the original film, but Columbia Pictures, which was acquired by Sony six years later. Presumably, this news means Warner Bros. must have quietly acquired the Krull rights from Sony.

We're also assuming Abrams' attachment to the project must have began before the current WGA strike, and not just because the strikes have slowed down just about everything. Earlier this month, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Warner Bros. had suspended its exclusive deals with a number of prominent producers, including Abrams. Even before the strike, there were reports that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav wasn't happy with the deal made with Abrams' Bad Robot.

Of course, suspended isn't the same as canceled, and the dual writers' and actors' strikes have made big question marks hover over everything in the entertainment world. When we have more news about the Krull reboot, we'll make sure you know about it.

I don't personally rate Abrams as a director and part of me hopes that any remake crashes and burns, but then again I've been up since 4am and maybe that is just the early morning talking.

[Jim H]

I like Krull, but I'd agree it's not a good movie.  This is actually one of the more sensible things to remake from the 80s really. 

[javakoala]

I have no feelings about Krull other than it looked like it was shot on constructed sets (which it was) and made it look like a bloated stage play that ached to be a musical by Andrew Lloyd Weber after gobbling four sheets of blotter acid.

My issue is that Hollywood today lacks ANY creativity to the point they feel the need to "remake/reboot/reimagine" even crap folks rolled their noses up at back in the day. Not that I should expect any originality from JJ at this point. Even his supposed masterpiece "Cloverfield" was a brainless mess that relied on people not thinking but being dazzled by lots of movement on the screen.

Guess we should expect a woke remake of "Bio-Dome" soon. Ooh, or a "progressive" reimagining of "Show Girls", called "Show People" most likely.

Yeah, I'm a grumpy proto-Gen X dude.

[FatFreddysCat]

I re-visited Krull about a year ago for the first time in many years. I enjoyed it but it is kind of a mess - a clunky combination of King Arthur and "Star Wars."

If memory serves it was released during the same summer as Return of the Jedi, which obviously wasn't a very smart business move. I find it hard to believe that studio execs watched Krull and thought "Ohhh yeah, look out George Lucas, we're gonna kick your ass with this one!"

[chainsaw midget]

I've been saying for years that if people want to make remakes so bad, they should choose movies that weren't that great originally instead of trying to compete with the classics.  So, I guess I have no room to complain here.

[javakoala]

A moderately recent remake that I didn't have any major issue with (other than being directed by Eli Roth) was "Knock, Knock", from the not-so-original "Death Game", which was based on the somewhat softcore film "Little Miss Innocence". In fact, if you get to digging into the writers of the two flicks from the 70s, you have to start wondering exactly who wrote what, when, and why.