New Zorro Series Gains One Of The Most Important Game Of Thrones Players
Game of Thrones writer Bryan Cogman has joined Disney+'s Zorro series as showrunner.
When you think about it, Zorro is a franchise that is long overdue for a renaissance. Canonically, Bruce Wayne and his family went to see a Zorro movie the night that young Wayne became an orphan, but these days, it’s difficult to imagine youngsters even knowing who this original dark crusader is. Disney+ (home of The Mandalorian) is looking to change this by releasing an upcoming Zorro series, and now Deadline is reporting that Game of Thrones writer Bryan Cogman is going to be the writer, showrunner, and executive producer for the ambitious new series.
While Cogman may not be a household name, he’s actually a pretty big deal in the world of entertainment. He previously spent 10 years helping to adapt Game of Thrones from book to screen, and while the final seasons were a pale ghost (no relation to the direwolf) of what came before, Cogman became a co-executive producer of that series and eventually took home a Producer’s Guild of America Award, a Hugo Award, and a whopping four Emmy Awards. With that kind of pedigree, it seems like the Zorro series is in very good hands.
And while Zorro seems to be the biggest thing on Cogman’s radar, he has also been involved in some other high-profile projects recently. For example, he was a consulting producer on Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, and he recently completed the screenplay for Disney’s upcoming live-action The Sword in the Stone. In other words, Cogman has a ton of experience helping to bring the intellectual properties of others to life, which may make him the perfect man to adapt Zorro for a new generation of fans.
The reason we say “new generation” is quite simple: the most recent high-profile Zorro media we have received was the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro and its 2005 followup The Legend of Zorro, both of which starred Antonio Banderas as the legendary swashbuckler. The second movie earned only $142.4 million compared to the original’s $250.3 million, and critics hated the sequel with the same intensity that they loved the original. While those films were obviously hit and miss, they showed how popular Zorro could be in the right hands, and Disney thinks that now is the perfect time to tell a new Zorro story.
While Disney would never admit this, we can only imagine the House of Mouse would also like to have some hit series on Disney+ that aren’t connected to either Star Wars or the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Those powerhouse intellectual properties have kept people subscribed, but they have arguably hindered the streaming platform’s growth because prospective customers who aren’t interested in tights, flights, or laser fights have no real reason to subscribe. By adding Zorro to the roster, Disney+ will have the kind of swashbuckling action that subscribers would have trouble finding anywhere else.
Unfortunately, we don’t know when this Zorro series is going to premiere, but it has been in development since late 2021 and just now has a showrunner in place. That would imply that we won’t be seeing the titular hero take up his mask and sword anytime soon. Then again, Zorro has a talent for appearing when least expected, and we hope to learn more about the future of this series in the coming days.
