Cole Haddon has written the novel and will remain on board the production as screenwriter. No director is attached to the project as yet, but the film will be produced by Dark Horse’s Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg, along with Mark Gordon (who has previously produced The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012).
The story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde has been adapted seemingly countless times from Robert Louis Stevenson’s original novella, most notably in 1931, when Fredric March played Jekyll and Hyde with the benefit of then ground-breaking light sensitive layers of make-up, enabling the transformation to be filmed in one take. No doubt a bucket of CGI will be thrown at the transformation scenes this time, hopefully to better effect than was seen in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Haddon is quoted as saying that Hyde is one of his favourite literary villains but has been denied his due on the big screen for the best part of a century. The story will not be a straight adaptation of Louis Stevenson’s original story, but rather an action-adventure reworking with Hyde this time presented as an anti-hero, up against a historical villain. The graphic novel is being launched at Comic-Con this week, when no doubt we will learn more about what the film adaptation will have in store.
Skydance Productions, who are working on the adaptation, are one year into a four year co-production deal with Paramount. Their reworking of True Grit is now in post-production and they are gearing up for Mission: Impossible 4 as well.