Welcome back for more LRF Trivia Tidbits! Season 35’s second round leans hard into mythmaking—reframing history through surreal biography, reviving a pulp legend with auteur polish, and pushing a hardened comic-book franchise deeper into its own brutal mythology. As always, the most interesting stories happened just off-camera.
Thus Dreamed Zarathustra
Originally conceived as a more conventional biopic of Friedrich Nietzsche, the project gradually evolved through rewrites into something far more fantastical and philosophical in tone. Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck remained committed throughout that transformation, even turning down another Season 35 release—The Molander Case—to see Thus Dreamed Zarathustra through as it became a stranger, more ambitious reflection of its subject rather than a straight historical portrait.
Zorro
With Zorro, LRF quietly completed an unexpected pulp trifecta, following earlier adaptations of Tarzan and The Lone Ranger in recent seasons. The connection runs deeper than coincidence: all three characters once shared airtime in the early 1980s animated series The Tarzan/Lone Ranger/Zorro Adventure Hour, making Season 35 an inadvertent echo of Saturday-morning adventure history.
The Punisher: Purgatory
While Mel Gibson’s Frank Castle and much of the supporting cast return for a third outing, Purgatory introduces a major new antagonist in Jonathan Tucker’s take on Jigsaw. Rather than a straightforward adaptation, the character merges elements of classic Punisher villain Jigsaw with Finn Cooley, creating a composite foe that fits seamlessly into the series’ grounded, relentlessly violent tone.
