Grapic Novel ‘The Secret’ Heading To The Big-Screen

Universal Pictures have signed a deal with Dark Horse Comics to bring the four-part graphic novel series The Secret to the big-screen.

Sshh… don’t tell anyone…

The graphic novel was created and written by Mike Richardson and illustrated by Jason Shawn Alexander. The story revolves “around a group of high school students involved in a prank that goes horribly wrong, but puts a spin on the teen horror thriller.” The official story description from the graphic novel itself is as follows:

“I know your secret.” Tonight is Tommy Morris’s big chance: he’s been invited to party with the social elite of Franklin High and maybe even hook up with Pam, the girl of his dreams. But when a prank call turns sour, Pam goes missing, and Tommy gets sucked into her disappearance deeper than he bargained for.

Richardson, the founder of Dark Horse Comics (the third largest comic book publisher behind Marvel and DC), is confident about the merit of his company and defines it as unique amongst other similar companies:

“People have a sense what a comicbook movie is, but at Dark Horse, we’re trying to defy some of those cliches and expectations… None of our books are the same.”

Scott Milam (who is set to write the remake of Mother’s Day, as well as the upcoming Bedlam) will pen the adaptation of The Secret, with Richardson acting as producer along with Scott Stuber (The Kingdom, Role Models - and has a whopping 40 projects in the producing pipeline!). This will be the second movie that’s part of the three-picture adaptation deal between Universal and Dark Horse, with the first being Umbrella Academy.

Universal is certainly not shy of adapting their material, with past examples being 300, Sin City, Timecop, The Mask, Son of the Mask (gag…) and the Hellboy franchise.

Although the story of The Secret does sound a little bit “been there done that,” I am sure there are many details within the graphic novel(s) that set it apart. The artwork for it (shown above) certainly stands out – it comes off like that is part of what makes it such an interesting read (props to illustrator Alexander, then). Will they try something along the lines of what they did with Sin City and adopt a technique to carry the style almost exactly from page-to-screen?

I’d be up for that.

As with most of Dark Horse’s work, The Secret comes highly recommended from pretty much everyone that mentions it. Since it’s only a four-part series, it may be worth picking them up just to evaluate fully for myself if it’d make a decent movie. Barring that, for those of us out there who aren’t familiar with the source material, I guess we’ll just have to wait until some images, a poster or a trailer comes out to get a feel for it.

What are your thoughts on The Secret? Have you read the graphic novel and if so, do you think it’s suitable for a big-screen version?

Sources: Variety and /Film