Page to Screen: Spike Lee On the Ledo Road & A Monster Hunter

By Rachel Deahl -- Publishers Weekly, 1/28/2009 12:40:00 PM

Spike Lee might be returning to the subject of World War II for his next film. The director, whose Miracle at St. Anna, about four African-American soldiers who get trapped in an Italian village during WWII bowed to uneven reviews in September, has optioned Brendan Koerner's nonfiction book Now the Hell Will Start. According to Zoe Pagnamenta, Matt Snyder at CAA brokered a deal for film rights on behalf of her agency with Lee's production arm, 40 Acres & a Mule. The book focuses on a little-known manhunt following a 1944 murder that happened on the Ledo Road, an American-built trade route that ran fom India to China and was intended to allow U.S. forces to circumvent another supply route cut off by the Japanese. The story follows a black soldier working on the road who, after being mistreated, shot a white officer and fled, surviving for months in a tribal village before being captured by American forces. According to PW's review: "Koerner’s engrossing story illuminates one of WWII’s fiascos as well as the disgraceful treatment of black soldiers during that era.”

Brendan Deneen at Objective is about to take out Johnny Monster, a comic book series by Josh Williamson. Deneen sold two of Williamson's previous efforts--Necessary Evil was bought by the Cartoon Network and Dear Dracula by Kickstart Entertainment--and is trotting Monster out to film execs and producers. He's pitching the series--it follows a "monster hunter" who, unbeknownst to him, was reared by the beasts he chases--as "Jurassic Park meets Spider-Man." The first issue of the series bows next February from Image Comics.