It’s always best to take comic book movie updates with a grain of salt unless the news is official or if it comes from the usual trade sources. The same goes for Valiant Comics IP, Harbinger, which is at the center of its own brewing cinematic universe at Sony Pictures, and though nothing has reportedly been officiated, the word is that American Assassin and Maze Runner trilogy star Dylan O’Brien is being tapped for the lead.
It was last Spring that people learned a little more about Valiant Comics as it notched up its credentials with a publishing deal through DMG Entertainment for several of Valiant’s properties. That news later followed through with an announcement shortly thereafter regarding Sony Pictures’s stake in establishing a cinematic universe leading up to a Harbinger Wars adaptation, inspired by Valiant’s 2013 crossover event publication.
There was even talk of getting 87Eleven Action Design head duo, filmmakers David Leitch and Chad Stahelski in the director’s chair for Bloodshot then set to be the first film in line at the time, although both titles were among several that the pair were being hyped by news outlets to helm after scoring big in 2014 with the Keanu Reeves hit action vehicle, John Wick. Since then, all has been quiet on the Valiant and Sony front so there really has been no knowing of any news about the blooming franchise-to-be, at least until this week, that is.
According to The Wrap, Sony Pictures is gearing up Harbinger first, instead, with Bloodshot to be introduced as the villain of the film, giving ample time for the studio to plot the remainder of the franchise’s development. Ex-Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter and artist David Lapham created Harbinger in 1992, telling of Peter Stanchek, a young telekinetic who, after running away from home, eventually finds himself recruited into the secretive Harbinger Foundation. Arrival scribe Eric Heisserer is providing the script with Neal Moritz of Original Film producing next to Valiant’s Dinesh Shamdasani.
Bloodshot, created originally by Kevin VanHook, Don Perlin, and Bob Layton in 1992 and centered on a resurrected supersoldier infused with cutting-edge technology and charged with hunting down “harbingers”, would have released in 2017. Thus, further details now remain pending with Sony’s newly revamped objective in mind. Stay tuned!
Actress Charlize Theron‘s latest big screen role can be found in director George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road this coming Friday. The film just had its premiere in Los Angeles and is certainly poised to be the start of a possibly epic and successful franchise whilst certainly lending some momentum to the award-winning co-star for her attachment as well.
Of course, time will tell what the future holds in that regard, but the momentum is high for her this week, and with events beginning at Cannes soon, word from Deadline brings good news for the actress comes by way of Focus Features and their latest North American acquisition for the author Antony Johnston’s 2012 Oni Press graphic novel publication, The Coldest City. Focus reportedly locked an eight-figure deal to produce the $30 million dollar adaptation from a script by Kurt Johnstad which centers its story of espionage and double crossing on Theron‘s role – a super spy forced into action to retrieve a list in order to protect the intel community when the MI6 agent smuggling it to the West is killed just before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Theron is set to produce with producers from Denver And Delilah Productions, Closed On Mondays Entertainment and Sierra/Affinity, along with 87Eleven whose founders, Hollywood stunt coordinators and filmmakers Chad Stahelski and David Leitch are also set to direct. The film is just one in a notch of successes between the directors who are currently on par to direct John Wick 2 following last year’s hit, as well as help bring Sony’s Harbinger Wars movieverse to the big screen, to name a few.
The Coldest City begins rolling cameras in Germany this October. Stay tuned for more info.
