The idea in Guillermo del Toro wanting to direct a Tarzan movie for producer Jerry Weintraub — I can’t think of two smart players who are more fundamentally unalike than these two — is what exactly? To take Tarzan out of the naturalist realm and have him fight monsters? Del Toro can’t make a movie without some kind of monster-demon of the id or supernatural element, and yet the writer is said to be John Collee, whose Master & Commander script was nothing if not tethered to the real worlds of men and the sea. What could be the basis for believing that audiences are about seeing another Tarzan movie anyway? Doesn’t Weintraub realize that John Derek’s 1981 Tarzan, The Ape Man ruled the earth and that any attempt to overcome its impact is futile?
