#fancats

Summary:

Immortal Iron Fists is the story of Pei adapting to living in America with her Thunderer and eventual foster father, Daniel Rand’kai. She is the newest person to hold the title of Iron Fist and grew up in Kun Lun learning more fighting skills throughout her childhood than most people would learn in the whole lives.

However those skills haven’t prepared for life as an American Middle School student. Though it helps that her teacher is crazy rich. Unfortunately, in addition to bullies, crushes and the everyday awkwardness of being a teen, forces seem to be at work to bring Pei down. 

Demons have been popping up around the city and while Pei would be more than happy to fight demons rather than take classes, Danny wants her to try her hands at having a semi normal life. But Danny can only protect her for so long. Eventually Pei will have to put her skills to use if she wants to survive this gauntlet of supernatural martial arts madness.

Why it should be a film: 

Immortal Iron Fists is a comic that was written with the intention of feeling like a martial arts film. They way the story is told and the different plot points throughout it are perfect for a film adaptation. The flow of Afu Chan’s artwork is a sight to behold and his character designs would look just as good in motion.

The original writer himself made a point about how it’s way past time for a character like Iron Fist to be an actual Chinese character rather than a blond white guy who happens to be the best at Martial arts

Pei is a character that has needed to exist for a while and I believe that having her appear in other media is a sure fire way to keep her from ending up in comic book limbo. .

Creative team: 

Immortal Iron Fists was originally written by Kaare Andrews with character design by Afu Chan

In order for the adaptation of the story to be done right, I believe whatever studio involved with developing an Immortal Iron Fists film should include them in the creative process. Either having them as story/art consultants or putting them in charge of those facets of the film.

As for who should write the film itself. My personal pic is novelist Sarah Kuhn. Sarah is the writer of the Heroine Complex trilogy (Heroine’s Journey set for release July next year) as well as the recent Clueless comic. To my knowledge she isn’t a screenwriter, but I believe she has the chops to take the reigns and crafting a story that would fit into a feature length film.

Main cast:

As for the voice cast, I have some pretty good ideas for who should play each of the main roles.

First, we have Pei herself. After narrowing it down, my personal pic for Pei Rand is Ellen Wong of GLOW and Scott Pilgrim vs The World fame.

*Also an alternative cast (that I thought of after posting this lol) is Peyton Lee (Andi Mack) She is the same age as Pei and as an up and coming actress who is the title lead of her own show I think she would also make a great choice for Pei.

For Danny I wanted to cast someone who I actually thought would have made a great live action Danny before Netflix announced their Iron Fist show. My pick for Danny Rand is Daniel Wu who is best known for his lead role as Sunny on AMC’s Into the Badlands.

For Detective Li, I cast someone who’s already been in Marvel films before. An actor with a voice that I think really fits the character and would play well off of Wu. Benedict Wong. Known for his roles in The Martian and Doctor Strange.

Lastly for Madame Yeoh, Pei’s babysitter and confidant for situations where she can’t look to Danny for advice, I cast Michelle Yeoh. Without spoiling the comic, that character is vital to Pei’s development and I want to cast someone who could carry that weight. Also it’s Michelle Yeoh, who wouldn’t want her in their movie?

Studio:

Lastly, I wanted to address who I think should animate this film. I expect Spider-verse to be super successful, so I think Sony should still be in charge over all.

However as far as animation, I think there are two studios who would be a perfect fit to work as a team on this film. Light Chaser Animation (best known for Little Door Gods) and Wolf Smoke Studio (best known for Kung Fu Cooking Girls and Batman of Shanghai. 

Obviously this is all hypothetical, but I wanted to try my hand at conceptualizing a film based on one of my favorite recent comics. It doesn’t hurt to hope that things like Into The Spider-Verse or even Marvel Rising could lead to new ideas being brought to the screen.