Wednesday, August 12, 2009

I Could Be A Prophet..........worship me.


Anyone remember waaaaay back when I talked about 10 Genre Properties Begging to Be Adapted? Well, it's looking like more and more of the properties I put out there are being fast tracked to hit the big screen or the small screen relatively soon.


First, there's Preacher. It was once a major property for HBO, but they couldn't get the right team in place or find a way to approach the admittedly vulgar and controversial material. So, they dropped it. However, Sam Mendes is now attached to develop a feature film version. So, there's one.


Then there's Green Lantern. I picked it as my number one genre property that should be fast tracked to a film version, and soon after, Martin Campbell was picked to direct, and on the heels of that came the news that Ryan Reynolds has been cast as Hal Jordan.


And now Variety reports that Frank Darabont, writer/director of The Mist, The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption is close to sealing an extremely lucrative deal to write and direct an adaptation of the comic book series The Walking Dead for cable channel AMC. I'm going to let Joel Stillerman from AMC talk about the deal and summarize what makes The Walking Dead special very well:


Joel Stillerman, AMC's senior veep of programming, production and original content, said the project appealed to the cabler because of "the quality of the storytelling" in Kirkman's work. The series will stay faithful to the tone of the original novels, he said.


"This is not about zombies popping out of closets," Stillerman said. "This is a story about survival, and the dynamics of what happens when a group is forced to survive under these circumstances. The world (in Walking Dead) is portrayed in a smart, sophisticated way."


This sounds like a good fit, seeing as how they produce risky, sharp TV series like Mad Men and Breaking Bad, both of which I've only seen episodes of here and there, but only because I don't have time to jump into a series with both feet right now (we're still trying to finish season 5 of The Wire and that's one of my fave shows ever). Darabont is a strong adapter of the work of others, and he could really capture the extremely bleak and brutal world that writer Robert Kirkman created.


And I'm totally prophetic. Seriously. I expect gifts of fresh fruit and virgins from my followers. I'd settle for M&Ms and dvds though. Just saying.

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