I was a bit too big in the early 1990s so I must have missed the three seasons of this cartoon series, originally called “Captain Planet and the Planeteersâ€, in which, I’m told, five young people from around the world are given five magic rings that control elements and together can summon Captain Planet to fight environmental evil. Yes, it sounds pretty dreadful, and I’m sure it was as bad as it sounds, like a cross between the United Nations and the Lord of the Rings, with a dash of a Marvel Comics’ brainstorming session reject. If we did cross the United Nations with the Lord of the Rings, orcs and goblins would always have the majority in the General Assembly, and the men of the West would fruitlessly struggle to defeat resolutions equating Hobbitism with racism.
But anyway… DiCaprio’s company Appian Way Productions has now teamed up with Paramount Pictures to acquire rights to the series and the talks are progressing. The project is of course very much DiCaprio’s alley (or up his Appian Way) as the celebrity lecturer-in-chief about climate change.
Since Leo is currently busy banging Danish swimsuit model Nina Agdal (17 years his junior, of course) – and I’m not – I thought I would step in and help one of my favourite Hollywood actors to reshape the character of Captain America to update him from a Gen X cartoon to a Millennial movie superhero. And since actors tend to do the best job when they’re playing themselves, I thought that Captain Planet should best be modelled on someone like Leo, but not really Leo (“The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferredâ€):
Captain Planet is an entertainment industry multi-millionaire, worth about $250 million to be exact, who made money pretending to be other people, but in secret (known only to a select group of paparazzi, publicists and several million of his closest fans) he dons a superhero costume and attempts to save the world from evil corporations (no, not the ones which pay him all that money to pretend to be someone else; the other evil corporations, the ones that pollute the world with their crap. What? No, no, the other evil corporations that pollute the world with their crap, like literally pollute, you know what I mean? Ah, never mind!).
Captain Planet, despite his trappings, lives quite modestly. There is his $10 million New York apartment, which he rents out for $250,000 a month (it “boasts things like ‘vitamin C-infused showers,’ purified air and water, a ‘circulated aromatherapy air supply,’ ‘posture-supportive heat reflexology flooring’ and a ‘dawn simulation’ system to help with your sleep cycleâ€); there is also his Palm Springs property (“1.34 acres of land, and the 7,022-square-foot home is outfitted with six bedrooms and seven and a half bathroomsâ€, just slightly above what an average American has now come to expect). Then there is his Malibu beach home, bought for $1.7 in 1998 and currently on the market for $10.95 million. There is also another mansion in Hollywood Hills. And his own private 2.2-mile long private tropical island off the coast of Belize. It will make for a great backdrop to the storyline about one of Leo’s, I mean, Captain Planet’s girlfriend’s anal bleaching run-off causing tropical reef bleaching.
Captain Planet, because he cares about the environment, does not own a yacht; he just hires them from people who do. Like David Geffen’s 11th largest superyacht in the world, 150-metres long, which is exactly the same length as if you laid all of Leo’s supermodel girlfriends end to end, which coincidentally he did.
Captain Planet has a superhero’s ability to fly. Mostly on private jets. I mean you have to save the world somehow. Captain’s private jets are the first in the world to be powered fully by renewables: a new, revolutionary (like “Revolutionary Roadâ€, geddit?) type of jet fuel made of mixture of supermodel tears and a liquefied ego. Unlike petrol or diesel, this fuel will never run out as long as Captain Planet is alive (“In 2014, emails hacked from film studio Sony revealed the Titanic star took six private flights in just six weeks, which cost £138,000, though a friend insists most of his flights were commercial. The actor’s publicist Ken Sunshine told me: ‘If you understood the time and effort Leonardo DiCaprio has devoted to his philanthropic and enviro efforts, you would be ashamed to print these half-truths and lies’.â€)
Captain Planet’s Planeteers will now be five swimsuit models from around the world, each given a magic diamond ring with a power to summon Captain Planet on his private jet (or a superyacht). This whole United Colors of Benetton/“from around the world†thing might be a bit of a problem, since while Leo is now up to his 10th Victoria’s Secret model – in amongst many other non-VS models – and has dated Australians, Russians, Brazilians, Israelis, and Czechs, 15 of them have been blondes, which makes him look more like an Aryan-f***ing Nazi superman than a genuinely multi-culti equal opportunity superhero star shagger.
Oh, and include something about the environment in the script.
