"Doc Savage" and the 'Fabulous Five'

Sony Pictures Entertainment has greenlit writer/director Shane Black's new take on pulp magazine hero "Doc Savage" for producer Neil Moritz and Columbia Pictures, following Black's stunning box returns for Marvel Studios' "Iron Man 3", earning $711 million since its international release May 3, 2013 and domestic release May 6. 

"...'Doc Savage' is proceeding on pace," said Black. "...as 'Iron Man' wound down I sort of reconnected with Sony who have been gracious to say, 'We’ll wait a year and sit on these rights until you’re finished with this other picture that we don’t control.' So they were really cool about it, they were really nice. So yeah I’m back on it."

Originally published in the pulp magazines in the 1930's, 'Doc Savage' was created by publisher Henry W. Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic at Street and Smith Publications, with additional material contributed by the series' main writer, Lester Dent.

The character then spun-off into radio, film and comic books, with his adventures reprinted for modern-day audiences in a series of Bantam paperback books (1964) with covers illustrated by James Bama.

The character 'Clark Savage, Jr.' debuted March 1933 in the first issue of "Doc Savage Magazine" from publishers Street & Smith. 

'Doc Savage' had no special powers, but was raised from birth by his father and other scientists to become one of the most perfect human beings in terms of strength, mental and physical agilities.

Savage set up base on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, fighting against evil with the assistance of the 'fabulous five', including 'Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair' aka 'Monk', an industrial chemist, 'Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks', aka 'Ham', an accomplished attorney, 'Colonel John Renwick', aka 'Renny', a construction engineer, 'Major Thomas J. Roberts', aka 'Long Tom', an electrical engineer and 'William Harper Littlejohn', aka 'Johnny', an archaeologist and geologist.

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "Doc Savage"...