Marvel had a few popular names hit the screen in the 80’s and 90’s, but there’s one hero who had some talented creators behind it who never got the chance to shine.
Nope, it isn’t Cardiac, though trust, a petition is coming. No no, the character, in this case, is Copperhead, a cyborg sheriff who Marvel wanted to see on the big screen. They then had popular creator George Romero do a treatment for it alongside Butch Guice, and Marvel had high aspirations for the character (via Bloody Disgusting).
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“There was a period of time where there was a guy, a very progressive guy who I liked a lot called Jim Shooter, who was the head of Marvel, and he called us in and said “we have this character. I think it has a lot of potential, and I’d like you to try and develop a screenplay or something to do on film with this character, and the character is called Copperhead,” Romero told Untold Horror.
Similar to Marvel, Romero also had high aspirations for the film, though some of those would be realized before he could get it to screen.
“I was trying to basically do Robocop,” Romero said. “Who knew Robocop was right around the corner? It was almost Transformers meets Robocop. That’s the way I thought of it.”
Romero would spend a substantial amount of time working on Copperhead, and despite some hiccups, things did seem to move forward.
“I spent weeks writing to Marvel and this is a process,” Romero said. “So four weeks turns into eight, turns into sixteen, turns into half a year. Anyway, we finally came to a script that we all liked.”
After a few more months it became apparent that things weren’t meant to be. “We didn’t have the power to get it financed, and it sort of just went by the wayside,” Romero said.
For all the time the project was worked on, Romero never actually got to see the finished pages from Guice. He finally had the chance at the Ottawa Comic-Con, and Romero seemed to be pleased.”Hey, maybe one day,” Romero said.
Who knows, maybe Copperhead could see a resurrection in the MCU?
