Zorro is to be transformed into a 21st century hacker in the latest incarnation of the classic swashbuckling hero, it has been announced.
Zorro will return, it seems, but not in the traditional mask-wearing, cape-swishing form that we’ve gotten used to over the years. The acclaimed director Alex Rivera has been announced as the helmer of the upcoming Zorro 2.0, which will update the hero for a new generation. This time he’ll be tackling social injustice not at the end of a blade, but instead from behind a keyboard.
Rechristened as ‘z0rr0’, (those are zeroes by the way, they just don’t look so tall in our lovely Film Stories typeface), the film follows a younger, modern version of the character, whom “when his mother is attacked by a secret government unit, a young, undocumented hacker known as ‘z0rr0,’ (Oscar de la Vega) fights back and discovers a high-tech conspiracy that threatens not only his family, but the world.”
Rivera, a recent recipient of the McArthur ‘Genius Grant’, has been steadily realising his enormous potential for years now, making award-winning and visionary Latino films such as Sleep Dealer for years. His role as director in this version of Zorro presents a real coup for the production.
Whilst Rivera hasn’t revealed much about his plans for the film, he had this to say about the project, drawing interesting comparisons between the character’s core values and his modern reimagining: “I’ve always been interested in films that address real-world issues through genre. This project is an opportunity to connect Zorro – the original masked avenger – to today’s border wars, a conflict in which immigrant families are pitted against regimes of hi-tech surveillance and government control. Zorro 2.0 will be visually elevated, socially grounded, sci-fi cinema, and I’m thrilled… to get this vision on the screen.”
We’ll bring you more on Zorro 2.0 as we hear it.
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