News
St. Vincent Directing ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’
After making her directorial debut on the anthology XX, penned by Roxanne Benjamin, experimental rock multi-instrumentalist Annie Clark (St. Vincent) is putting a female spin on The Picture of Dorian Gray for Lionsgate, reports Variety.
Based on Oscar Wilde’s 1890 novel, the studio is putting a twist on the classic Victorian age story of a hedonistic man whose self-portrait ages while he stays eternally young. As suggested, the title character will be a woman.
David Birke has been hired to write the script. Birke wrote Paul Verhoeven’s thriller Elle, starring Isabelle Huppert. He also co-wrote the upcoming Slender Man horror film from Screen Gems, and is currently adapting the crime thriller Alex from Pierre Lemaitre’s novel.
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, but it was a cheerful illustrator from England who helped to define the terrifying war-torn imagery that inspired what we now know as Grimdark (a hybrid genre combining horror with sci-fi/fantasy).
Unfortunately for fans of Warhammer 40,000, Trench Crusade and countless other sources of Grimdark thrills, veteran artist John Blanche passed away this week after struggling with health issues for the past few years.
While the artist retired back in 2023, he leaves us with an enormous legacy of iconic artwork that continues to inspire gamers and storytellers around the world to this very day.
The news is especially gloomy as it was only last year that Daniel Lowman and Napoleon Dynamite himself Jon Heder released The Grim & the Dark: The Search for John Blanche, a documentary following Heder’s exploration of the Grimdark genre culminating in a heartwarming encounter with Blanche in his own home.
Below is one of my favorite pieces by Blanche, his highly influential depiction of Warhammer 40k’s God-Emperor of Mankind on his Golden Throne.
We send our deepest condolences to John Blanche’s family, friends, and fans.
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