This is an interesting combination. Deadline reported yesterday that The Big Short director Adam McKay will be directing an adaptation of the Boom! Comics comic book Irredeemable. Further adding to the intrigue, Dead Snow writer and director Tommy Wirkola is currently penning the adaptation.
McKay is already familiar with working in the superhero genre. He was brought in to work on the screenplay for the first Ant-Man film after Edgar Wright’s exit from the project. He has since written the story for the sequel, Ant-Man and The Wasp, with star Paul Rudd.
In the Mark Waid-created comic book that debuted in 2009 and lasted 36 issues, the central figure is the Plutonian, the world’s greatest superhero until he began heartlessly slaughtering the population of Earth, at least those who defy him. It falls to a superhero group known as the Paradigm to stop his rampage. They were former colleagues of the Plutonian, they’ve all got problems of their own, and none of them is nearly as powerful as the mass-murdering maniac holding the world hostage. In Clarice-Hannibal Lecter fashion, the Paradigm in desperation turns to a famous supervillain for help; it might be the only way to stop the carnage.
As studios scramble to buy in to edgier works after the success of Deadpool, 20th Century Fox has an in with Boom! Comics and their property with a first look deal. This is the seventh such book bought by the studio. And with a story in which superheroes die and a super villain is brought in to help solve the Paradigm’s dilemma you can sure that Fox will be looking at the upcoming Suicide Squad to see how much the movie going public wants to see super villains on the side of good. So to speak.
Hmmm. It is free comic book day tomorrow. I will have to take a look at this while I am at my local comic book emporium.