That’s what’s going to happen if Matthew Vaughn (who according to Deadline London is currently in LA editing X-Men First Class) gets his way.  Vaughn is said to already have a major studio interested in this project called The Golden Age which is an adaptation of an as of yet unpublished comic book about – get this – a retirement home for superheroes.  As the story goes, mom and dad screw up the world for little Johnny and Grandpa’s the only one who can save him.

I admit that I have at one time or another giggled at the prospect of, say, an old lady who’s a ninja and can kick a lot of ass.  That’s funny.  (Or at least I thought it was at the time).  But it’s not like we haven’t seen this before, and just recently too. Michael Caine’s  Harry Brown is about a geriatric vigilante.  There are a few Expendables who, I believe, have reached or are close to legal retirement age.  We got to see the sad plight of the aged superheroes in Watchmen. Even the middle-aged Mr. Incredible and his buddy Frozone retired to their humble lives of mediocrity while spending nights sitting in their car listening to the police scanner and wishing for the good ole’ days.  Vaughn cites the success of movies like The Expendables as proof that America is ready for a movie about superheroes playing bingo and racing each other down the hall in their wheel chairs.

Nothing against the actors because we’ve gotten to see the three kicking butt before so I know they can handle it.  Eastwood’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is one of my all-time favorites. Then of course Beatty was Clyde in the Bonnie & Clyde film. And who can forget about Jack’s famous late-night TV reference from The Shining?

For me this isn’t about some ageist fear of seeing old guys in spandex.  I’m just wondering if maybe these guys are so iconic that the movie would try to capitalize off their natural personalities (scary if we’re talking about dead-pan Beatty).  Because then the characters from the comic will cease to exist and it’ll just be about seeing Eastwood, Nicholson & Beatty shooting big guns and perhaps even doing some wire-fu. And that just doesn’t sound very appealing to me…

[Source: Obsessed with Film]

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