Videos by ComicBook.com
Along the way, though, we asked him a uniquely comic book-y question, and got a surprising answer. Noting that the Rocky films (he starred in four of them) followed a very similar kind of arc to many superhero franchise movies, we asked Weathers which, if any, franchises he might be interested in if a role came knocking.
“I can’t think of anything offhand; of course there are some really wonderful, wonderful franchises out there. I think the Iron Man franchise is wonderful and of course the classic Superman and Batman. I grew up with those, of course. There was one back in the day that I came very close to being involved in called Power Man, which was one of the Marvel characters.”
He added later, “I can’t think of anything that I’d desperately want to do [in the future]. There are a lot of good ones, though, as I said. So with the right character again and the right story? Of course.”
It’s not totally unheard-of that Weathers was considered for the role; if you look hard enough online you can find a treatment for the unproduced project with a reference to Weathers’ name. We’d never seen anyone speak on the record about its existence, though — or how close (or far) it came to actually being produced.
When we pointed out that Power Man — better known to most comic book fans as Luke Cage — now has a TV series in development at Netflix, he said that he thought the property was just too big a risk in the ’80s.
“Yeah, I know. I know–finally!” Weathers said of the upcoming series. “But back in the ’80s, Stan [Lee] and I met, and I met with someone else over at Universal at the time. It just was not to be at the time. I think it was a little ahead of its time, the concept of having a superhero who was black, you know?”
Toy Story of Terror is available on Blu-ray and Digital HD Aug 19. Look for more from our interview with Weathers between now and then.
