Don Diego de la Vega, also known as the masked vigilante Zorro, isn’t a character you see much anymore. (Specifically, it’s been 21 years since The Legend of Zorro, charmingly described on its Wikipedia page as a “swashbuckler” movie, was released in theaters.) And that’s too bad — in an era of extreme wealth inequality, a character who defends the poor and oppressed against the corrupt and greedy would be welcomed with open arms by much of the American public. But wait! Who’s that swinging through the open window on a silk curtain?
It’s Django/Zorro, a screenplay that Sony Pictures recently commissioned from Brian Helgeland, who was nominated for Oscars for his scripts for L.A. Confidential and Mystic River. (More recently, he wrote John Woo’s remake of his own The Killer, which was released to barely any fanfare on Peacock in 2024.)
