Why did The Phantom take 60 years to get made?
This comic book character has been around for over 90 years, and at the peak of his fame, Hollywood spent millions of dollars adapting it, only for one small marketing mistake to completely destroy his potential and dismantle any chance of big-screen success going forward.
Did Billy Zane blame the marketing for ruining his dream role? Was Joe Dante bullied out of directing for being too bold? Are we wrong for loving it? Let’s talk about it!
The Origins of The Ghost Who Walks
It’s the summer of 1920 in Saint Louis, Missouri. A 9-year-old boy is missing school to grieve the death of his father, a Jewish immigrant called Benjamin Gross. The boy’s mother, Eleanor Alina, is taking him to a stage magic show in the city to cheer him up. The boy would sit in the dark theater and find himself becoming lost in the magical display of illusions before him. A dove vanishes from the magician’s hand only to be reproduced from a handkerchief. An elderly woman is being pulled from the crowd and hypnotized right in front of him. The impossible is being displayed as if it were a casual practice. The boy was instantly hooked, and this moment would change the course of his entire life.
That boy was Lee Falk, and this magic show would unknowingly become the inciting incident that would one day bring us perhaps the greatest pulp comic book film of all time — The Phantom.
But the road to getting there is much more entertaining than you might think.
From daily comic strips in the local paper to a career in stage directing, character development, and (of course) an entire catalogue of comic books that would lead to a cult classic film. This is the story of Lee Falk’s Phantom, and how this indie comic strip helped define comic book cinema from the 90s, all the way to today.
Lee Falk was born in Missouri in 1911, the son of two Jewish immigrants who raised their family in the suburbs of Saint Louis. Falk was always a fan of the arts, particularly stage work and radio serials, which he and his brother Leslie would spend hours consuming. After the death of his father, Falk’s mother would remarry, and her new husband would become a dedicated father figure to the two boys, leading the kids to change their last name to match his — Falk.
The Golden Age of Pulp
Growing up, Falk would spend hours drawing characters and writing his own stories about whatever he found interesting at the time. Famously, Lee was obsessed with magic and specifically magicians. He found the mystique and swagger of stage magicians to be captivating in a way that seemed to supersede being merely human — and more like an all-powerful being. This obsession would eventually inspire Falk to draw and write stories for his first official character — Mandrake the Magician.
If you didn’t know, Falk got a job in his early 20s making comic strips in the paper about a magician who had actual magic powers and would use them to solve mysteries and protect the innocent. Mainly this hypnosis thing he would do to cause his foes to hallucinate and see constructed illusions as a distraction. These comic book strips were being published by King Features, a major publisher from New York City. They had developed a rapport with Falk through his work on Mandrake, even paying him to make the strips full time. In one interaction, a friend told Falk that his drawings of Mandrake the magician bore a striking resemblance to Falk himself — to which Falk replied, “Of course he does! I was alone in a room with a mirror when I drew him!” The strips were Falk’s way of building a world far more interesting to him than the real world he was forced to live in.
This is all happening around 1934. The comic strips were a success, but Falk’s obsession with magic was evolving into something deeper. While he stayed connected to all of the whimsy of magic he cherished as a kid, Falk realized that at the core of that fascination was his love for myths and mythology.
It’s the winter of 1935 now, and Falk finds himself distracted. He’s still writing Mandrake comic strips, but he turned the illustration duties over to an artist named Phil Davis. The pair would work well together, but Falk found himself splitting time between writing the Mandrake strips and fantasizing about a new character that he’d be dreaming up. A character that didn’t have magical powers, but physical power. A character that was part man, part myth. A guardian of the city, hidden behind a skin-tight bodysuit and a black mask. A character called The Phantom.
The comic strip is a hit!
In February 1937, nearly 90 years ago, The Phantom debuted in a King Features publication as a comic strip. Originally, Falk is writing this character as a city-based crime fighter who would stalk his villains in a grey suit. He wouldn’t get the purple suit for a few more years. Falk sort of created the idea of Batman with this character. His name was Kit Walker, a rich playboy with no real superpowers, but morals of steel. Sound familiar? However, Falk based the character originally on a western-style vigilante, like a cowboy — another thing he enjoyed as a child. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that Lee and King Features would reintroduce the character as a purple-suited jungle dweller who lived in a skull-shaped cave and had a pet wolf called Devil. This is the Phantom that the world would come to know.
The Phantom’s backstory would stay mostly the same, with Falk writing some additional key details that contribute to the character’s longevity. In the modern canon, Kit Walker inherited the mantle of The Phantom after college, abandoning his city-slicker lifestyle for the cause of protecting the jungle from pirates who exploit it. See, the Phantom is really an idea — a concept passed down from generation to generation. Kit inherited the job from his father, who inherited it from his father, and so on. So, if you’re curious as to how we’ve had so many different people to don the purple wetsuit, the mantle is ritualistically passed from person to person. And Falk did this in a way to make his character less of a superhero and more of a folklore myth — a timeless protector that has been around for hundreds of years. A living tall tale.
By the early 40s, this daily strip was becoming a phenomenon, with readers following the adventures of Kit Walker to the tune of 1 million daily readers. This thing was the 1940s version of Pottermania in the late 90s. Falk would be on the train and see handfuls of passengers reading his stories in the paper as if it were scripture. He knew that the legend of The Phantom was bigger than a daily strip. So he kept on writing the stories, even occasionally crossing over Mandrake with The Phantom in what could have been a cool crossover in other kinds of media — but alas, it has not happened on screen as of now.
Early attempts at bringing The Phantom to the big screen
By 1943, Columbia Pictures was writing letters to Falk every week, begging him to meet with them. His publisher, his illustrator, and his friends and family urged him to take the meeting — which he (excitedly) did. Columbia wanted to adapt Falk’s Phantom stories into a weekly television serial. They wanted to make 15 episodes that showcase the hero in all of his small-screen glory — but there was a problem.
Columbia had demands. They wanted to make the show, but they didn’t want to use Kit Walker as their Phantom — opting instead to write a nearly identical character with the name of Godfrey Prescott. Some say that this is because the Phantom’s identity hadn’t been revealed in the comic strips yet — but that’s almost impossible to confirm without having access to the daily strips over the initial run. The show was low budget and shot in the Hollywood Hills to cut costs, which (as you might imagine) didn’t make for the easiest sell for a character who is supposed to live in the jungle. Falk appreciated the show for its efforts, but he knew that it fell shy of reaching his character’s full potential.
It didn’t have the grandiose mythology or visual creativity to show The Phantom the way Falk saw him. Think of how we grew up hearing tales of The Boogeyman or The Tooth Fairy — we don’t really think of them as actual people, but as larger-than-life mythical beings. The show failed to capture that aspect of the character, so Falk just kept writing the comics his way. And he did this for another decade.
Making enough money to support himself, and doing it by way of an IP he created — Lee was living his childhood dream. But he never let go of the desire to expand his creation into other media.
By 1960, King Features had been proudly publishing The Phantom comic strips for decades — naming it their number one adventure strip in the publisher’s history. The books were being translated into other languages and making sales to an international audience, the character was being referenced in households, and readers were talking about the adventures as if they were daily news. This thing was growing.
With his popularity spanning through the 70s and into the 80s with multiple standalone comic books and the continued daily strips, the Phantom’s moniker of “The Ghost Who Walks” and his iconic skull motif imagery became bigger than the character himself — and this is what Falk was after. His superhero transcended the page and became a real-life myth.
After decades of success with the character, during which Falk was also directing and producing stage plays and writing original material, a now 80-something Lee Falk had made a life and career out of his childhood fantasies. Heroic magicians, dastardly pirates, and the Ghost Who Walks were his life’s work. Despite the trials and tribulations of his personal life during that time — including a few failed marriages — he never let the work suffer.
Lee Falk wrote the stories for the Phantom comics the entire time, and he had successors continue the drawing of The Phantom, including launching the careers of artists like Ray Moore, Wilson McCoy, Carmine Infantino, Bill Ligante, and Sy Barry. But one thing remained unchecked — Falk still never saw a big-screen adaptation of his character, which he had dreamt of for decades.
But all of that was about to change…
Enter Joe Dante
It’s the early 90s, and Falk has yet to retire from creating new adventures for The Phantom. Paramount Pictures is looking to adapt popular comic books into film with the rising popularity of superheroes in other types of media — mostly cartoons and comic books. But the toy market was also booming at the time, making The Phantom a prime candidate for a film adaptation.
Paramount options the rights and begins shopping for screenplays. Originally, iconic filmmaker Joe Dante (Gremlins, The Burbs) was hired to direct the film with a screenplay drafted by Jeffrey Boam. Dante wanted to make the film a tongue-in-cheek semi-satire on campy comic heroes and even planned to finish the movie off with a final battle between The Phantom and a giant winged demon.
Surprisingly, Paramount was originally down with this.
However, after multiple delays in the movie’s production, Dante would find himself pulled away to other commitments — leaving Paramount time to retool the script to shift away from parody and lean into a more self-serious adaptation. This left the script feeling somewhat awkward, with serious moments being undercut by shards of the original funny script.
What was left was a script that pulled inspiration from three key storylines of The Phantom comics mythology — including “The Singh Brotherhood,” “The Sky Band,” and “The Belt.” However, the movie did introduce some completely new characters and heightened the supernatural elements of the story to make it more action-packed and in line with what superheroes were becoming in pop culture.
Basically, a character older than Batman was being molded to be more like Batman.
The Phantom we got (rather than the one we almost got)
Phantom fanboy Simon Wincer ends up taking over directing duties when Dante falls out, and production begins in 1995, with a tight schedule to release in summer 1996. During this time, Falk is still writing stories for the character in print and even loosely consults on aspects of the movie.
Billy Zane is cast as Kit Walker, and he hits the gym hard to get in peak shape for the gig — which he did. The production was originally set to film in Hawaii, but due to budget (and time) constraints, the filming locations were moved to Thailand, Los Angeles, and New York City.
The jungle locations, including the Skull Cave and the introductory action sequence, were shot in Thailand, and that’s the best-looking part of the film — although the retro-futuristic design of the city was also very charming and impressively made in NYC.
Filming wrapped in February of 1996, and the film entered post-production. And finally, Falk was starting to see the live-action version of his creation come to life.
Through the film’s editing stages, multiple action scenes were cut, including a wrestling scene with a lion and a fight with an anaconda. Although some of those more animal-heavy fights were scrapped, the movie’s edit also cut much of the romance between Kit and Diana — opting to present a more swashbuckling and action-oriented movie.
This caused some concern for Falk, as his main interest was in seeing the legend of The Phantom. He wanted to see the folklore hero he created, not another vigilante in a skin-tight suit.
But at this point, it was out of his hands.
The film was released in theaters in the summer of 1996 and opened as a live-action feature in the United States and Australia, starring Billy Zane as Kit Walker/The Phantom (the 21st Phantom), along with Treat Williams, Kristy Swanson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, James Remar, and Patrick McGoohan. It was released with a reported budget of about $45 million.
The film was marketed as a retro, 1930s-set pulp adventure and superhero origin story, directly inspired by Falk’s early strips and featuring the Singh Brotherhood and Sky Band as core antagonists, translating key comic motifs like the skull ring, jungle oath, and generational legacy to film.
If you want to know more about the crazy road to releasing this iconic cult film, please feel free to check out the video we did last year covering all the juicy details.
And with the movie being out to the masses, and Falk still writing the comics, he finally got to see his creation hit the big screen.
However, it wasn’t what he was expecting…
Falk mostly had mixed to negative things to say about the movie, stating he appreciated the treatment of the character, but the script, tone, and overall execution of the film left a lot to be desired for the legendary author. He felt the movie’s tongue-in-cheek approach undercut the legacy he’d spent the last five decades creating — a serious character doing serious work.
Falk liked the cast, especially praising Billy Zane, who committed himself fully to the role, and it showed in his physical preparation and stoic performance.
Unfortunately, the movie’s underwhelming box office results and mixed critical response ensured that no sequels would ever be brought to the silver screen.
Falk would pass away in 1999 at the age of 87, and it seems like we’ve never been further away from reviving his vision and adapting his most famous creation once again.
Maybe one day a brave fan will try again to do justice to The Phantom, and Lee Falk can watch from the clouds and enjoy it.
And folks, that is the story of Lee Falk and the more than 60-year run he had.
The post Why did The Phantom take 60 years to get made? appeared first on JoBlo.