Remember that Will Smith movie from 2008 about a homeless superhero who’s bad at being a superhero?
Well, Hancock is likely getting its long-awaited sequel soon, despite how “meh” the original was after the first hour. In fact, I speculated on what I would love to see from a Hancock follow up two years ago, and young Jon Negroni simply argued that the hero, Hancock, deserves his own superhero team. And you know what? I stand by how fun that sounds.
Except now I believe the Hancock story should be reimagined as a series, perhaps with a new cast. You can blame the success of streaming hits like Daredevil and House of Cards for getting me on the Netflix content bandwagon.
The interesting thing about Hancock is that it isn’t a superhero adaptation. It’s actually based on a story dreamed up by Vincent Ngo, a writer/producer who came up with the character of Hancock back in the mid-1990s.
Of course, stalls in development kept the film in limbo for over a decade, but this world of fallen angels being reluctant superheroes is still ripe for exploitation. And thanks to Hancock‘s somewhat bittersweet ending, a reboot/refresh sounds very appealing to fans like me.
See, the movie itself was pretty fun up until the third act, when it rushed its “serious” plot with a weird twist and underpowered finale. But imagine how much more entertaining the origin of Hancock would be if it was given a full season of episodes to build up its lore with the same comedic timing and exciting action sequences.
If I was in the writer’s room, I’d prefer Ngo’s original take on the story, where Hancock has a stronger relationship with Aaron, the young son of Ray and Mary. It’s a more interesting dynamic that doesn’t need the weird sexual tension built between Hancock and Mary to drive the plot. Instead, you have a broken, lonely man with powers slowly becoming a hero alongside a kid who adores him. Now that sounds like a TV show premise worth pitching.
When you rewatch Hancock, you’ll notice that his motivations for going along with Ray’s “PR rebranding” are pretty weak when you think about it too much. Hancock suddenly decides he wants people to like him, seemingly out of nowhere. But it makes way more sense if Hancock builds a realistic friendship with Aaron, which eventually leads him to discovering the truth behind his powers.
In other words: more Hancock and Aaron. Less weird love triangle stuff. Oh, and more action.
Now imagine all of that stretched out over 13 episodes of a grisly weirdo learning how to be super. And then contrast this concept with the over saturation of comic book movies and TV shows about people who fight crime because it’s the right thing to do.
You know, while Hancock just does it because shrug whatever.
I love the idea of a Hancock series, especially with a new cast and refreshed plot that can deviate from what we saw in the movie by actually including real villains (not just a bunch of bank robbers).
As for casting…well, you can decide that for yourselves in the comments.
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I definitely think that’s a wonderful idea! It’s just time now to get big media conglomerates and television institutions to read this post, I say! Would definitely be worth the watch x
Agreed completely
Agreed with your complete agreement completely.
And I agree with both of your agreements completely 🙂
Yeah, idk. I sort of like the idea of just a plain old sequel with Will Smith again.
Definitely would love to see a tv adaptation of Hancock. Especially with the hot streak of superhero tv shows from DC’s Arrow, to the Flash, Upcoming Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow and the canceled Constantine and Marvels Agent of Shield, Agent Carter and the AMAZING Netflix DareDevil tv shows and the upcoming Netflix projects expanding DareDevils own little universe and the purported Agent of Shield’s spin off I’ve been hearing about. It’ll definitely be awesome to increase the universe of Hancock which is intriguing although the ending was a bit of a rush if I say so myself.
Agreed, and I think Hancock gets the benefit of full creative control. As long as they put great writers on it, Hancock becomes a novel show that can generate a new fandom the same way comics and books do. Because watching it is how you discover it.
In other words, put it on a good network.
Hmmm, that could work. I still would prefer a film sequel leading to an entire original Hancock Cinematic Universe, but it’s been so long since the first one now, it probably is better for a reboot. I likewise read the original Tonight He Comes script, and I loved it’s dark tone. But if we were keeping the comedic take from the movie for a TV series, then my choice for Hancock would be Damon Wayons Jr.
I think its so hard to do sequels! I think this was the most original show I’ve seen and am like why haven’t they made this a tv show continued with the cast? IDK whod Id cast myself but it seemed to really pick up at the end and it was over but they’d have to be really good. Maybe each character could bring some different genre feel to it? Like one for comedy, one for drama etc; It had everything, comedy, drama, the similar social circles or “Love triangles” and the intense action packed scenes with the different perspective, superpowers and with the mysterious historical, philosophical significance. It had a lot of depth, was like poetry for films. I’m not much for superhero movies, am pretty picky when it comes to that and this was the few I liked myself. I actually like the individual characters/actors playing the role more than the whole movie franchises themselves. But, I think there’s so much superhero stuff well written that hardly ever executes well, loses the depth coming on screen due to the screen time and the demographic today. One example, there’s some book series called The Outliers which sounds pretty cool and original, haven’t read them yet thought. But that’s just my opinion. Plus well written scripts and finding an all around talented and versatile cast today is not easy and I think most of the top actors are getting fed up with the lack of scripts on cable and are starting doing stuff on amazon netflix, broadway or even producing films. Still, if they come out with a series i am totally on board!
Yes, definetly worth watching. There should be a cinematic entry of Hancock in DC or marvel Cinematic universe.