zorro Tagged Articles at Cinematical

1. Saturday Afternoon Serials
For those that don't know, serials were presented in front of regular features in 20-minute installments over a period of 12 weeks (mainly in the 1930s and 1940s), leaving off each time with a cliffhanger, to be miraculously resolved the following Saturday. Many of them are rentable today, and you can watch the entire 240 minutes in one sitting, if you so wish. To date, I've made it all the way through only one serial, though I've attempted many. Most reviewers credit serials as a major Indy influence, but few reviews actually name which ones. I've narrowed it down to five. The first two are Zorro Rides Again (1937) and Zorro's Fighting Legion (1939), mainly for the swashbuckling hero's use of the bullwhip. These two are in the public domain and widely available on DVD and for download, but I'd suggest going with VCI Entertainment's DVD versions. The other three are examples of the "jungle adventure" subgenre: Perils of Nyoka (1942), Secret Service in Darkest Africa (1943) and Perils of the Darkest Jungle (1944) -- although each has also been released under alternate titles.

Even though the two Antonio Banderas Zorro (The Mask of Zorro and The Legend of Zorro) films have brought home roughly $400 million worldwide, the actor feels that he may be a bit too old to take on the role for a third time. Not for nothing, one can make the "too old to get dirty" argument for Harrison Ford going all Indiana Jones for a fourth time, but Antonio still looks and acts pretty young. C'mon, the dude hasn't even hit 50 yet - perhaps, physically, Melanie Griffith has taken a lot of of him?

Speaking to IESB, Banderas doesn't rule out a third film, but says that he may want to take on more of a mentor role and teach his son how to be Zorro, much like Anthony Hopkins did in the first film. While it may be a nice way to round out the trilogy and still leave the franchise door open, are there any young actors out there right now strong enough to even take on such a role? Then again, seeing as The Legend of Zorro wasn't a major success at the box office, do people care enough about the Zorro films to want the series to live on beyond Banderas?