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.”
Zach Cregger is no stranger to violent movies, with his first two at-bats in the horror genre yielding the films Barbarian and Weapons. But even those movies can’t compete with the level of violence on display in his next movie Resident Evil, he teases in a new chat.
Zach Cregger tells Empire Magazine that Resident Evil is “definitely the most violent thing I’ve done.” He teases, “You gotta go grotesque! I wanted to go all the way.”
“So it’s gnarly. It’s brutal,” Cregger continues. “A very bloody affair.”
He also tells Empire, “Fleshing out what [the Umbrella Corporation is] up to and how the T-virus works, that’s not what this movie is. This movie is about one dude’s journey on foot, fighting monsters. I don’t give a fuck about checking boxes. All I cared about was just telling a fun story. We step on the gas at about eight minutes in and never take our foot off the floor.”
Resident Evil opens in theaters and IMAX September 18 from Sony.
The film is being billed as “a thrilling — and terrifying — reinvention of the Resident Evil franchise” from the mind of visionary filmmaker Zach Cregger (Barbarian, Weapons).
Austin Abrams (Weapons) stars as Bryan, a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in a non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.
Zach Cherry (“Severance”), Kali Reis (“True Detective: Night Country”), Paul Walter Hauser (“Black Bird”), and Johnno Wilson (“Twisted Metal”) round out the cast.