Gael Garcia Bernal is to take a swing at 20th Century Fox's new Zorro movie. The Mexican actor will play the masked adventurer as a vengeful vigilante in a post-apocalyptic world, according to Variety.

Zorro Reborn will see the dashing swashbuckler shifted from Spanish colonial California to a barren desert future, where presumably his mantra ("to avenge the helpless … to aid the oppressed") will apply to almost everyone.

Plot details are still masked, but Fox's new direction is a radical departure from recent adaptations. The last two films – 1998's The Mask of Zorro and its sequel, The Legend of Zorro (2005) – may have shown an ageing Zorro (Anthony Hopkins) passing the rapier to a successor (Antonio Banderas), but they stayed true to the setting and style of the early stories by the character's creator, Johnston McCulley. Sony, which released the Banderas movies, is apparently working on a more traditional origins story.

Other notable adaptations include the silent adventure, The Mark of Zorro – which gave Douglas Fairbanks a crack at the whip – and 1981's Zorro: The Gay Blade, a spoof version (tagline: "Zexy, Zany, Zensational!"), in which the character's gay twin brother, Bunny Wigglesworth, takes on the Z-swiping duties.