When many of you think of Zorro on screen, you'll likely recall the movies starring Antonio Banderas. The actor first played the iconic masked vigilante in 1998's The Mask of Zorro alongside Anthony Hopkins, who played the original Zorro, Don Diego de la Vega, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
He'd later return for a 2005 sequel, The Legend of Zorro, though it wasn't as critically or commercially successful as its predecessor and that's where the franchise ended.
There's no indication that series will be revived, though multiple reimaginings are in currently the works. Among them is Disney+'s untitled Zorro project which, according to Deadline (via SFFGazette.com), has now found a writer and showrunner in Game of Thrones scribe Bryan Cogman.
He worked on the HBO hit for over 10 years and 8 seasons, penning a total of 11 episodes and serving as co-executive producer. He received four Emmy Awards, a Hugo Award, a Producer's Guild of America Award, and 7 Writer’s Guild Award nominations during that period and was a consulting producer on Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power's first season.
Cogman also has a history with Disney after being hired to write the upcoming live-action The Sword in the Stone remake.
The Disney+ series follows privileged caballero Diego De La Vega who returns to his hometown of El Pueblo de Los Angeles following a family tragedy. There, he discovers a culture of corruption and injustice that will lead him to take on the mantle of the masked vigilante Zorro - America's first true superhero.
Wilmer Valderrama executive produces the series and is expected to star as the title character in what's been described as a bold reimagining of Disney's classic series for a modern audience; an epic adventure rooted in California’s rich and diverse history, bursting with humor, sinister intrigue, romantic entanglements, and swashbuckling thrills.
This has been in the works since 2021, so it's good to know that the show is finally beginning to take shape.