Deadline is reporting that Paramount Pictures have acquired the rights for The Mighty, a DC Comics-published Graphic Novel.
The Mighty is co-written by Peter Tomasi and Keith Champagne, with artwork done by Peter Snejbjerg.
The film will be produced by Mary Parent (Role Models, The Kingdom), Cale Boyter (The Butterfly Effect, Shoot ’Em Up), and J.C. Spink (The Hangover, I Am Number Four).
Tomasi started out as an editor for DC in the early ’90s, and after a fifteen-year editorial career, he began to start writing instead, and has written for Justice Society of America, Green Lantern Corps, and Batman and Robin. He was also one of the writers on Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, with the voices of Nathan Fillion, Jason Isaacs, and Elisabeth Moss.
I must admit that I’m yet to read the two-volume graphic novel (also published in twelve issues), but the premise of it is definitely intriguing:
“The Mighty tells the story of Alpha-One, the world’s most powerful super-being, who has always been a force for good, but Gabriel Cole, a cop who’s life was saved by Alpha One as a child, has uncovered his hero’s dark plan that will put them on a collision course of an ordinary man versus a super-man.”
Judging by some of the titles of each of the twelve issues (which you can see here) – from the first issue’s title, The New World, through to the final issue, And In The End – we should have a great story to look forward to in this film.
In recent years, as everyone knows, we’ve been bombarded with superhero movies, left, right, and centre. Many of them have been excellent, and do brilliantly at the box office, but it sometimes feels like there’s not a whole lot of new ground being covered; a bit of a ‘If we throw enough money at it, and use enough CGI, it will do great in theatres and secure us a sequel’ kind of attitude. So I think it’s good to see that studios are branching out a bit and taking things in a different direction with their comic book-/graphic novel-adaptations. Having the cop be an ordinary mortal man going up against a villain with superpowers could definitely make for an excellent film.
Of course, with Paramount only just picking this up, there’s no word yet on potential directors or cast, but hopefully we can look forward to some exciting announcements in the months to come.
