Movie Deals: Bendis's Torso; the New Aquaman; Wagner GN to DreamWorks

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on January 17, 2006 Sign up now!

-- Publishers Weekly, 1/17/2006

Director David Fincher has signed on to direct for Paramount a feature adaptation of Torso, the acclaimed graphic novel by Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko. The Ring and Brothers Grimm screenwriter Ehren Kruger will adapt the graphic novel about Eliot Ness's investigation of the nation's first documented serial killer case.

Kruger will begin work on the script once the studio finalizes the details. Fincher, currently directing Zodiac with Jake Gyllenhal, is expected to direct Benjamin Buttonbefore starting work on Torso.

Torso has been a pet project for Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, who optioned the film rights to the graphic novel shortly after its publication by Image Comics in 1999. McFarlane and partner Terry Fitzgerald will produce the picture with former Fox studio head Bill Mechanic and Don Murphy, who produced The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

McFarlane says the project's combination of period piece, the popular serial-killer genre and a well-known real-life hero makes "Torso a perfect project for adaptation. It's an easy hook for the audience," he says.

"You've got Eliot Ness, who's his own brand name. The second part is this unknown story that's sitting there. It's all true, and we were heading into World War II and it got pushed away." McFarlane says Fincher envisions the film as having a mid-range budget of around $65 million.

Despite the film's huge commercial and critical potential, getting a commitment from a studio has not been easy. McFarlane says the expense of making a period film with action and possibly A-list creative appeal may have scared off studios. Also, the story does not have a happy ending, chronicling Ness's fall from grace as the nation's premier crime fighter.

"We think of Eliot Ness as sort of the guy in the white armor coming into town to save Chicago from Al Capone," he says. "This story is basically the fall of the hero." McFarlane says the key to the film is to connect the audience with the character of Ness and the innocence of the Depression setting. "We have to get them to go back and believe that these people have never dealt with—they didn't even have the word for it—a serial killer."

While waiting for Torso to proceed, McFarlane is continuing work on a new Spawn animated TV series and a new Spawn feature that McFarlane says he plans to write, finance and direct himself before the year is out. The animated series is in production, with the company currently searching for overseas animation houses to do the brunt of the work. Once the series is complete, the show will be shopped around to networks. McFarlane says he's agreed to give HBO, which aired a previous Spawn animated series, the first shot at picking up the series.

Toale To Make Splash In Aquaman TV Series

Will Toale has been cast as the lead actor in the pilot for a proposed Aquaman TV series from Smallville creators Al Gough and Miles Millar. The pilot is set to shoot in March and the series is expected to be a part of the WB network's fall lineup.

Gough says that Toale, a 28-year-old newcomer with stage and extensive modeling experience, was the result of a three-month search that covered more than 400 potential actors. "It's that sort of intangible that you can't put your finger on, but you know it when you see it," Gough says of the choice. "He has a charisma, and charm and a warmth."

The series, as yet untitled, will take a similar approach to Smallville, with the King of Atlantis living in exile and running a dive shop in the Florida Keys. "Smallville is very much a show about adolescence, and Aquaman is very much a show about being in your 20s," Gough says. "Instead of being about 'who am I?' it's 'what's my place in the world.' "

The environment will be a major theme on the show, and Aquaman's relationship to the seas was one of the reasons Gough and Millar chose to develop the character. "Of all the other superheroes in the DC universe, he had the most real-world agenda."

DreamWorks Grabs Wagner's New GN

Button Man: The Killing Game, a graphic novel written by A History of Violence scribe John Wagner and drawn by Arthur Ransom, has landed at DreamWorks for a feature film adaptation. Josh Braun and Roger Kass, executive producers of the film version of Violence, sold the rights to the studio and will produce Button Man. A search is on for a screenwriter to adapt the comic, which was originally serialized in the U.K. anthology 2000 A.D.

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