Radical Comics Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Just yesterday I was marveling over the output of Radical Comics, and in doing so managed to miss a little news item that will probably one heck of a prescient move on their part. You see, they've recruited the writing and directing talents of one Joseph Kosinski, the helmer of Tron Legacy, who might just become The Next Big Thing after 2011. But he'll be a little busy, as according to The Hollywood Reporter, Radical Pictures has nabbed Kosinski to write and direct the sci-fi story Oblivion, an original story that he'll develop as a film and as a graphic / illustrated novel. (That's its moody, evocative preview art to the right. Dang, Radical has some good looking books!)

The story centers on a war weary soldier who is court-martialed, and assigned to a bleak and desolate planet as a punishment. His assignment is to destroy the last remnants of its local alien race. His life becomes weirdly linked with a mysterious traveler, and they find themselves questioning everything -- their lives, the planet their on, and their missions.

It's a project that Kosinski began when he moved to L.A., before the days of Tron Legacy and ComicCon frenzies, and had planned on Oblivion as the movie that would kickstart his career. "I was looking to make a science fiction film that I could do on a budget. It's grown since then, but it's intended to be a very spare science fiction film, with a small cast but big ideas and big landscapes." The fact that it's a story penned pre-success intrigues me, and makes me hope that Kosinski is going to join the "Saviors of Sci-Fi" club that Duncan Jones and Neill Blomkamp have originated.

Abattoir may simply be French for "slaughterhouse", but I've always thought it was a far, far more sinister word. Possibly it's because whenever someone wants to describe a true bloody chamber of horrors, they always call it an abattoir instead of "slaughterhouse" "torture room" or "that basement where all the bodies were!"

So the mere title of Darren Lynn Bousman's latest trip to the dark side has me good, scared, and intrigued. Variety reports that the plot centers on a real estate agent assigned the awful task of cleaning up the remnants of a massacre that took place in a for-sale mansion. As if the job wasn't gross enough, he's visited by a creepy old man who leads him into "a web of shadows, murders, and massacres." Something tells me that real estate agent isn't getting that big commission he banked on.

Bousman is writing and directing the film for Radical Pictures, a spin-off of Radical Comics who are just churning out the adaptations lately. (Caliber, Freedom Formula, and Hercules are just three they've got going right now.) Naturally, Radical and Bousman are are looking to the future, and this could be the first of many visits to the Abattoir. "After taking over the Saw franchise for so long and then directing Mother's Day based on the original film, this is exciting because it is an original concept and we feel it could be a huge franchise," says Bousman.

Read the rest over at The Horror Squad!

Last summer, Bryan Singer was still in the Superman chair, toying with the idea of producing Capeshooters. Now? He's looking at directing an adaptation of Radical Comics' Freedom Formula for New Regency, according to Variety.

The five-issue series was launched at last year's ComicCon, which is also when Singer and Radical's Barry Levine became interested in Edmund Shern's series.
Michael Finch has been hired to write the script -- and according to Levine, he "came up with an incredible take that goes deeper into the mythology of the source material."

I wish I could say I really see what they did with the premise. It's set in a future where the government is run by corporations, and fighter jets have been replaced by genetically engineered pilots who race in "exosuits." The racers are slaves, held captive by their bloodline, until one young man named Zee who discovers that his bloodline has the power to change society. It's like Spartacus by way of the Thunderdome and podracing on Tatooine.

Admittedly, I haven't read the series, just a preview. Several comic blogs have reviewed it favorably, for what it's worth. Perhaps it's excellent, and miles away from something that belongs in the 1980s. You can judge for yourself, as CBR has a preview of the first issue, and Radical has a trailer up.

There is a real trend of King Arthur revisionism lately -- first there was Galahad, then Brian K. Vaughn's Roundtable, and now John Woo is taking a crack at it with Caliber. Variety reports that the rights to the series have been snatched up by Johnny Depp's Infinitum Nihil, Barry Levine's Radical Comics (also the book's publisher), and Woo's Lion Rock.

Caliber sets King Arthur firmly into the American Old West, which is rather fitting, since as a location it's nearly as mythical as Camelot. Arthur is given Caliber, a tattooed six-shooter (how do you tattoo a gun?) given to him by the Native Americans. It's no ordinary gun, as it's never loaded with bullets. Only a man with Justice on his side can fire it, at which point it shoots lightning. Accompanying him through the Pacific Northwest are the The Knights of the Round Table, all noble gunslingers, bound by a code of honor to protect the weak and defend the innocent. I guess they have to carry regular guns, though. I can't find an online preview of the comic for you, unfortunately, so we'll just have to hope a Cinematical reader out there can fill us in on the first issue. It certainly has a pretty cover, but I'm not sold on the premise yet.