BillySmoke Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's a scary thing when I can barely remember where I left my cell phone, but I go "Billy Smoke? I did a story on that last year." Back then it only had Matthew Fox attached, but now it has a director. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Jeffery Nachmanoff has signed on to direct the adaptation of B. Clay Moore's comic series. This will be his second director gig, the first being the moderately received thriller Traitor.

Smoke centers not on the black monster of LOST fame, but on a top-of-the-line hitman who narrowly escapes a botched job. The brush with death sends him in search of redemption, and he decides the only way to find it is to kill all the assassins of the world. Pretty tall order. Moore's series is still awaiting publication -- a thread on Oni Press is giving a date of April 2010. The author says Warner Bros is "seriously jazzed about this one" and that the project is moving quickly.

It's difficult to judge it without even a preview of the book, but given the comic adaptations Warner Bros has been putting out, let's give this one our full attention and see what comes of it. Is it possible that by 2010 or 2011 Fox will be a major action star in his own right, the days of LOST and Party of Five behind him? You never know.

According to Variety, Matthew Fox is in talks to play the title character in Warner Bros' Billy Smoke, an adaptation of Oni Press's newest comic book series. Don't feel bad if you're wondering who the hell Billy Smoke is, and why you can't keep up with comic books these days -- it won't be published until next year. Oni Press doesn't even have a preview of it up, so we can't judge it based on six pages.

However, the story goes a little something like this: Smoke is an elite hit man, who is nearly killed during a botched job. He has a change of heart, and realizes that his only way to find redemption is to rid the world of all assassins. It's waking up the ghost of another film in my brain, but I'll be damned if I can remember what it is. Readers?

The series is being written by by B. Clay Moore, who already has racked up some luck in the movie business. His graphic novel, Leading Man, was recently optioned by Universal. And yes, that too is published by Oni Press. I'm a little worried they are actually taking over Hollywood, as this is the fifth book of theirs to be optioned by a studio. The Last Call was bought just last week. I'm not sure what titles are even left to buy at this point -- may I nominate Polly and the Pirates?