Here's a riddle: If a Breck Eisner directs a 'Stretch Armstrong' movie but there's no one in the theater to see it, did it ever really happen? We're betting his paycheck says so.

Relativity has announced that Breck Eisner will officially direct 'Stretch Armstrong.' We reported a couple of weeks ago that the studio and the director were in talks to bring the classic toy to life on the big screen.

But this isn't the stretch guy you remember wrapping around your dog or stretching from your doorknob as far across the room as you could go without him whipping into your Sega. This guy is going to star in what the studio is calling a "gritty actioner," where he'll get a real first name and everything.

Introducing... Lucas Armstrong. A guy who undergoes a crazy transformation (because of the microwave? A tanning bed? This part is unclear -- they can just add it in post) that gives him "superhuman abilities." Don't play coy with us, Relativity. We totally you know you mean that his limbs can stretch, like, really far.

Eisner is quoted by Relativity as saying,  "What really excites me is the chance to build a hero from the ground up." Oh, you mean like the people in factories who literally built Stretch Armstrong from the ground up -- many of whom probably had their own hopes and dreams about what to do with this guy, like maybe they imagined beating his face in every time they cashed their minimum wage paychecks and went home to their pregnant wives in their shanties.

Eisner is best known for directing a remake of George A. Romero's 'The Crazies,' and will direct 'Stretch Armstrong' from a script by Dean Georgaris ('The Manchurian Candidate,' 'Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life') for an April 11, 2014 release.

 

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