Movies
Uni to Adapt Dark Horse’s ‘Fear Agent’
With the San Diego Comic Con approaching fast, expect a sh*t ton of announcements for comic book to film adaptations. This evening the Risky Business Blog on the Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Universal Pictures could be heading to outer space for an adaptation of Dark Horse’s Fear Agent. You’ll find all of the details inside.
Universal could be heading to outer space.
The studio is in early development on the Dark Horse sci-fi property “Fear Agent.” The project is now an open-writing assignment, but there’s a possibility that the studio could match a spec whose rights are controlled by “Air Force One” producer Jonathan Shestack and bring Shestack on to produce “Agent.”
“Agent” centers on a colorful, borderline alcoholic astronaut named Heath Huston, a Texan who works as a so-called fear agent, the last of a dwindling breed of spacemen whose mission it is to fight threats to the planet Earth, which is partly destroyed during the course of the series.
The property emphasizes a kind of in-your-face adventure as Huston hops around the galaxy fighting various alien species and threats.
Rick Remender penned the series, which began life in 2005 as an Image Comics property before moving to Dark Horse the following year.
Dark Horse Entertainment, the production banner of indie comics powerhouse Dark Horse, has been behind a number of comics-to-film breakouts, including “Hellboy” and “30 Days of Night.” After releasing the Dark Horse production “Hellboy 2,” Universal last year partnered with Dark Horse for an overall production and distribution pact.
Universal has put several other Dark Horse properties in development. The company this spring announced that it was developing “The Secret,” an adaptation of the tale of a missing teenager that Scott Milam (who is currently penning the remake of Mother’s Day shooting next month) has signed on to write. It also is eyeing the counterculture title “Emily the Strange.”
In addition to “Air Force One,” Shestack recently produced the Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” and is producing Lionsgate workplace comedy “Cover Your Assets.”
Universal has been having a hell of a time getting their Universal Monsters brand back on a better path in the wake of the Dark Universe collapsing, with four movies thus far released in the years since The Mummy attempted to get that interconnected universe off the ground.
First was Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, to date the only post-Mummy hit for the Universal Monsters, followed by The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, and now Abigail. The latter three films have attempted to bring Dracula back to the screen in fresh ways, but both Demeter and Renfield severely underperformed at the box office. And while Abigail is a far better vampire movie than those two, it’s unfortunately also struggling to turn a profit.
Where does the Universal Monsters brand go from here? The good news is that Universal and Blumhouse have once again enlisted the help of Leigh Whannell for their upcoming Wolf Man reboot, which is howling its way into theaters in January 2025. This is good news, of course, because Whannell’s Invisible Man was the best – and certainly most profitable – of the post-Dark Universe movies that Universal has been able to conjure up. The film ended its worldwide run with $144 million back in 2020, a massive win considering the $7 million budget.
Given the film was such a success, you may wondering why The Invisible Man 2 hasn’t come along in these past four years. But the wait for that sequel may be coming to an end.
Speaking with the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, The Invisible Man star Elisabeth Moss notes that she feels “very good” about the sequel’s development at this point in time.
“Blumhouse and my production company [Love & Squalor Pictures]… we are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” Moss updates this week. “And I feel very good about it.”
She adds, “We are very much intent on continuing that story.”
At the end of the 2020 movie, Elisabeth Moss’s heroine Cecilia Kass uses her stalker’s high-tech invisibility suit to kill him, now in possession of the technology that ruined her life.
Stay tuned for more on The Invisible Man 2 as we learn it.
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