Lea Thompson says Marvel Studios actually liked her Howard The Duck reboot pitch
The Howard The Duck star still wants the eponymous duck to get his own standalone MCU movie
Film News Howard the Duck
Earlier this month, Lea Thompson saw that Howard The Duck was trending on Twitter, so she wrote, “What if I get to direct [a Howard The Duck] Marvel reboot?” Turns out, she wasn’t kidding about the offer to finally give us a good onscreen version of the alien duck’s story.
During an oral history of the infamously terrible flick done with The Hollywood Reporter to celebrate the film’s 35th anniversary, it was revealed that Thompson actually sent that tweet mid-interview. She was inspired by the cult classic status of the ‘80s movie. And she did actually get to pitch her vision for a new Howard The Duck story to Marvel Studios. “Joe Quinones did some of the art for the pitch because he and Chip Zdarsky did the last run of Howard The Duck comic book. Chip and I worked together and came up with a really great pitch,” she said. “Marvel liked the pitch, but they have different plans for the different characters. I still think I could do a really good job because I feel like I am the one who really understands the fans, both of the movie and the cartoon.”
So, as Thompson explains, Marvel Studios were impressed, but they don’t want to give Howard The Duck his time to shine in the MCU just yet. That’s why the actor decided to tweet about her goal to direct a remake. It was an attempt to gauge how many people would be into the character getting his own standalone film following his appearances in Guardians Of The Galaxy and Avengers: Endgame.
The oral history also offers some interesting factoids about the making of the notorious film, including that Robin Williams was originally cast as the voice of the eponymous duck, but he quit within the first week because it was seemingly impossible to sync his voice with the duck’s animatronic bill. “What I was told was by the third day, Robin said, ‘I can’t do this. It is insane. I can’t get the rhythm of this. I am being confined. I am being handcuffed in order to match the flapping duck’s bill’,” recalled Chip Zien, who wound up taking over for Williams and voicing Howard instead.
74 Comments
Is this something that people want?
So many ‘boots’. I’m tired of the boots. We need some new shoes.
These boots are made for fumfering…
Eh, it could be fun as fuck if they lean into the weirdness. Doctor Bong, man!
Don’t forget Elf with a Gun!
Don’t forget, ‘the Black Hole…sucks!”
The Deadly Space Turnip!
Not surprisingly, I had a different image in my head for that name.
I thought that Deadpool was an anachronism, a character that was so 90s that he would seem stale if brought back in his own film. After watching the first movie, I turned out to be right, but other people seemed to like that one. So if Deadpool can get two movies, why the hell not Howard the Duck?
It’s my understanding that Deadpool already had a significant fanbase, while Howard the Duck bombed hard last time around.
It bombed 35 years ago.That’s not to say that it would necessarily be easy to make a hit Howard the Duck movie today, but I don’t know how much built-in fanbase some other Marvel properties had before they got recent hit movies. I wouldn’t have necessarily thought that a ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ movie would be a hit when it was announced. The market for comic book movies is a lot different than it was in 1986.
Who knows, maybe I’m wrong. Personally, I have zero interest in seeing the film if it ever comes to fruition.
I thought that Deadpool was an anachronism, a character that was so 90s that he would seem stale if brought back in his own film. After watching the first movie, I turned out to be right
Which is kind of funny because Deadpool spent most of the 90s as a generic Xtreme 90s anti-hero/villain and it wasn’t until the 00s that Deadpool the “merc with a mouth” who cracks jokes, does goofy things, and makes meta commentary was established.
Nah, that happened pretty early on in the 90s. Basically once Liefeld left in 93 the character got turned into a quip machine by Fabian Nicieza
It’s strange times when an alien duck might get 2 movies and 1 easter egg appearance… before Marvel’s strongest hero of all time hasn’t even shown up once.Yeah that’s right time I’m talking about frickin Squirrel Girl. They’d sell so much merch too.
Howard the Duck just seems like such a product of its era. The original comics are classic 70s stoner humor and while they’re readable for their weirdness if nothing else now they’re pretty archaic. All the attempts to update feel like old nerds making reference to something that was only funny if you were a certain age at the time.
I’ll admit that I haven’t kept up with comic books in a long time, but aren’t all comic book characters a product of their time? Who would have thought that the cosmic Jack Kirby stuff would work outside of the psychedelic 60s? But it does.
I mean there’s not math to say what will work and what won’t and it’s a combination of a lot of things. Jack Kirby’s creations are very cool, can be funny or whimsical or absurd but aren’t really jokey or broad satire and seem adaptable to later styles by other artists and writers. His comics are an object of their era but they’re more than that and the characters are compelling enough to keep being reinvented.Howard the Duck is just 70s stoner humor and some random silliness and isn’t anywhere near Kirby’s caliber. It just seems like something that was funny to a specific generation and was kind of Marvel responding to underground comix of the time like Fritz the Cat. Mostly though as a character Howard is pretty one-note and empty, not that the comics couldn’t be funny but it’s not like he’s some timeless creation— he was just kind there to write wacky stuff around. Maybe someone can take the character and make something of it though, I shouldn’t say it’s impossible, but that same creator could probably do the same around a completely new anthropomorphic animal. To me it just seems like an interesting artifact of its day that doesn’t work outside of it and ought to be left there. Like an airbrushed mural on a Chevy van or the music of Humble Pie.
I see what you mean. I think I owned one or two Howard the Duck comic as a kid, and all I knew about the character was that he starred in a terrible movie, and he was based in Cleveland. And since I loved neat Cleveland, I kind of liked him for that reason alone.
Because Deadpool isn’t a talking duck?
That’s at least a point off in Deadpool’s column then.
Maybe they can get that AFLAC duck to play Howard. People love him.
Maybe they can get that AFLAC duck to play Howard. People love him. I’d like Gilbert Gottfried to do Howard the Duck’s voice but there’s a problem with that…
If it’s a jaunt through weird Marvel, then yeah. Team Howard up with, like…the Great Lakes Avengers and go ham.
Yes.
Nope, just like your Ed Hardy T-shirts and bedazzled skinny jeans.
Seven Constanza, are you going to make the same Ed Hardy jean joke over and over again? What is this, the 10th time you’ve thrown that insult at me? Are you just that fucking stupid and lack the ability to come up with something a little more original? You’re fucking pathetic, a Trumper, and you fuck your own sister raw while she wears a Melania mask. Eat a dick.
This is for the grey troll that’s obsessed with me.
Howard the Duck is one of those 70s artifacts that shouldn’t have survived that decade. I’m sure if you were 14 in 1976 he was subversive and hilarious, but for the rest of us it’s a crusty wall made of very specific references to things that were forgotten 6 months after publication.
where’s She-Hulk
Was that supposed to be funny?
i think it was supposed to be clever
Deadpool doesn’t really resemble Howard the Duck all that much.
Those lines would make more sense if Ambush Bug was saying them (ignoring for a moment that he’s DC).
Deadpool and Howard the Duck are similar in approach, but not result. Both are an amalgam of the pop culture and humor of their respective ‘70s and late ‘90s/early 2000s eras. Howard leans into the political and social satire of the ‘70’s — things like Fritz the Cat, National Lampoon magazine, Monty Python movies and Sleeper. Deadpool channeled the meta humor, pr0vocation (particularly around sexuality) and gross out jokes that emerged with Beavis and Butthead, South Park etc. Both owe a lot to funny animal cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck as well.
I loved the Howard the Duck movie when I saw it. I think I was 9. Kids are idiots.
Somehow, some way, “Bring me the code key, Howard,” became an oft quoted movie line among me and my friends in middle school/high school. Still breaks my heart that Jeffrey Jones turned out to be a weird perv.
Still, it explains why the kids were trying so hard to get away from him in Ferris Beuller.
I had forgotten that line for 30 years but I read it in Jones’s voice immediately :)Mybest friend and I still refer to Leah Thompson as Duck F***ker
And that’s why you two are never invited round for dinner anymore….
I enjoyed it too. I was 12, so I have even less of an excuse.
I was 15, but I somehow didn’t manage to see it until it came on cable a few years later.
I had the biggest crush on Lea Thompson when I was a kid and between her almost banging her son in Back to the Future and her actually banging a duck in Howard the Duck, it really messed me up something good.
her actually banging a duck in Howard the Duck
As I vaguely recall the film, Tim Robbins and Jeffrey Jones interrupted before they went full Interspecies Romance.Honestly, I was lot more disturbed by the duck boobies.
I would straight up need to start smoking pot again if I’m going to re-watch that movie and verify.
This . Only damn thing I remember from the movie.
Sure, have a human fuck a duck and the movie’s “terrible”, but have the human fuck a fish and they hand you Oscars.
I suspect its the cork screw penis that gets ya the critics
Yeah, I gotta cry fowl on that
wow – glad I’m not the only one (who apparently had the sameish reasoning)she didn’t know Marty was her son btw so it wasn’t weird! /s
And the kinja comment of the year award goes to :
“…her actually banging a duck in Howard the Duck,…”She married him and gave him a human surname.
And a nationality.
Don’t forget “Casual Sex”
Lea Thompson to me is entitled to direct this movie, just on the fact alone she almost fornicated with a Duck. I’m glad she hasn’t had a checkered past. Knowing she hit on her son in Back to the Future, then proceed to have a romantic affair with a Duck and also her making out with Powers Boothe in Red Dawn.
Ha! Same. I was fairly sure i wasn’t her type.
I read that as ‘her Howard The Duck robot pitch’ and would be definitely behind that.
Let her do it, I’m sure Seth Green can handle it, at the very least, it can be a Disney+ show
Seth Green is a Pedoo & it would never be on d+
Stop trying to make Howard the Duck happen.
Is she OK? She looks touched.
You know, I was initially against a reboot/remake, but my wife has some of the comics and they are pretty freaking funny! She also loves the old movie (which, uh, yeah I give her shit for), but at the same time it also had some good dialogue and moments peppered in here and there. Best scene involves Howard learning the grave truth of how ducks are treated on Earth (not great!). I only ever tried watching it once in college and I immediately gave up because I was a snobby film kid at the time. But I am glad I watched it all the whole through, if only to agree with Lea Thompson that yes, Howard the Duck has merit. Somewhat. Look, if you just rewrite some of the dialogue, toss that dumb as hell forced action scene at the end, and cut down the bestiality sub plot, I think you’ve got something here.
You’ve got a stew going?
I’m sure they told her they liked it.
When you get to a certain level of pitching, everyone loves everything when you’re face-to-face. Once you leave the room they start finding problems.
“…infamously terrible flick…”Speak for yourself. Howard the Duck is only terrible if you try to take stories about post-modern Norse gods and inter-dimensional ducks remotely seriously, which is exactly what’s so insufferable about the last twenty years of comic book movies. It would be refreshing to see a remake (reboot, sequel, whatever) that actually paid homage to the absurdity of the original without shoehorning it somehow into 30+ other indistinguishable Marvel movies.
Nah, it was shit.
It’s…not that terrible.
BTW, I heard that Marvel was changing the name to Indians of the Galaxy now…
All I want is a quick flashback scene showing Wong trying to recruit Howard The Duck to fight Thanos in the big battle.
Wow. I’ve been under the impression for decades that Richard Dreyfuss was the voice of Howard. Someone told me (waaaay pre-internet) that he did it as a favor to Lucas. . . I stand corrected.
Two people named Chip in this story. Huh.
Robin Williams, hard to work with? Get right outta town!
Oh come let her do it! I enjoyed the movie (because I was a little kid and they like awful things.)What’s worst that’s gunna happen? Marvel/Disney is out a couple mil they probably would have lost in the couch cushions anyway? It’s not like she could screw it up worse.Besides I’ve gotta hear.“Backup! I’m a master of Quack-fu” one more time before I die.