According to Variety, producers Gil Adler and Shane McCarthy are planning to bring the World War II-themed Sci-Fi/Horror comic Night & Fog to the big screen. Previously, Adler served as a producer on other well known comic-book movies, including the horror/action film Constantine and the widely heralded (yet ultimately disappointing) Superman Returns. Variety points out that Adler is also producing Dead of Night, which stars Brandon Routh and is based on the popular 1980’s Italian comic book, Dylan Dog.

While I haven’t read Night & Fog myself, the premise of the comic sounds interesting. Quoting from the Variety article:

“[Night & Fog] revolves around an infectious mist unleashed on a military base that transforms its victims into preternatural creatures of the night. But when the survivors try to kill them, they adapt and change into something even more horrific and unstoppable.”

The description of Night & Fog reminds me somewhat of John Carpenter’s The Thing, which is definitely a good thing. Having not read the comic, however, I’m not sure whether my instinct is right. I’ll have to pick up a copy of the trade paperback when it comes out in the spring to see if I really enjoy the story. If anyone out there is currently reading Night & Fog, please share your opinion of the comic in the comments.

In Screen Rant’s recent look back at the most important movie events of 2000-2009, one thing we highlighted was the evolution of the comic book film from pulp cinema to box office blockbuster. The way things look now, the next decade won’t be putting a stop to this trend as a host of new comic book adaptations, including Iron Man 2, The Losers, and Kick-Ass, are already on the slate for the first half of 2010 and a plethora of major superhero flicks in 2011 (Spider-Man 4, Green Lantern, Thor, Captain America, etc.). With the addition of Night & Fog, along with a number of other lesser known comic books, it has become clear that (with the exception of remakes of 1980’s films) comic books are the way to go in Hollywood.

Does Night & Fog sound interesting to you? Are there any other indie comics you think should make it to the big screen?

Source: Variety

At this morning’s Masters Of The Web Panel at Comic-Con, Robert Sanchez (IESB), George Roush (Latino Reviwe), Wilson Morales (BlackFilm), Paul Christensen (MovieWeb), Vic Holtreman (Screen Rant), Ryan Rotten (Shock Till YOu Drop), Drew McWeeny (HitFix), Devin Faraci (CHUD), Mike Sampson (Jo Blo), Jeremy Smith (AICN) & Brad Miska (Bloody Disgusting) gathered to discuss the ins and outs of writing for movie sites.

Kevin Munroe (Director Dead of Night) moderated the panel and in the second half of the panel, Brandon Routh and Anita Briem joined in on the fun.

Everyone on the panel wore their “favorite” Twilight t-shirts and while the crowd was assembling they seemed confused, trying to figure out if the panelists were making a statement or a joke.

Robert Sanchez started it up and asked if anyone in audience wanted to know anything from the guys on panel about the online community and that got the ball rolling.

The first question was “Do you guys get paid?”  Ryan Rotten said it took about 7 years of writing before he started to get paid for what he does enough to do it full time.  The audience recognized that these guys do what they do because they love what they do.

Robert Sanchez chimed in that ad revenue helps pay the bills.

The question was raised if there are conflicts with what they report vs what advertisers they have.  Jeremy Smith said that for him, there’s no conflict with ads and movie reviews.  He doesn’t play favorites.

Drew McWeeny added that if they actually pandered to the advertisers, that readers will smell it and that would have an adverse affect on how a site is percieved.  Besides, He runs Adblocker so he doesn’t see the ads on his own site.  (The audience got a kick out of that.)

Someone in the audience was curious:  “Are you journalists or bloggers?”

The general atmosphere was that it’s tricky to put a name on it.  One perspective is that journalists just report the facts while bloggers tend to add opinion to the news articles.

Ryan Rotten, in his reply, added that Forest Ackerman may be considered the earliest “blogger” but he doesn’t consider himself a blogger.  Sites that pander to delivering bad opinions on a regular basis, those are who he considers to be bloggers.

Our own Vic Holtreman then chimed in to say that he must be the only blogger on the panel. Screen Rant doesn’t often “break” news but uses other sites as news sources and we add editorial commentary that our readers enjoy.

Jeremy Smith said adding commentary to the news makes it more interesting.  Devin Faraci said that he considers himself a film activist and though he adds objectivity, he does add opinion.

Someone in the audience then asked if anyone on the panel had advice on how to get started, or to get their stuff on major websites.

Drew McWeeny made reference to Ryan Rotten having worked for 7 years before getting paid and said to just start a web or blog and  write about film and develop your voice.  Don’t worry about how your website looks, just start writing – but do bring something unique to your writing.  Things can be spiffed up later.

Devin said it takes patience, to start from the bottom and work at it.  Too many people have only been in the realm of web site entertainment reporting for a few years and seem to expect to get the big interviews (and money) and that just isn’t realistic.

McWeeny said that one of the more difficult things to do is to distinguish your site.  Everyone is covering the same thing, day in and day out and sites need that individual identity.

Smith added that being snarky full time is not a substitute for real news and but that what you say that shows that you love movies in the process is the important part of the process.

It was mentioned that there are sites that look to over serve their readership and get too eager to present information to their readers.  In one case, Devin talked about sites that grab items and put them up too early against studios requests, or sites that snag videos from other sites and then put their watermark on it, despite the video being exclusive to a site.

Robert said that IESB doesn’t do too many reviews but dispenses news and let the readers make their own judgments.

A question was asked that was first thought to be a question about reader demographics and what percentage are female site readers, but it seemed to be a question about whether the sites have female writers.

Robert made note after looking over the panel that they have no women on the panel, and promptly apologized.

Robert also said that his wife runs the site and does most of the writing and that most of the sites have female writers.

Faraci said that sites have a lot of different demographics of readers, across lifestyles, genders, etc..

Drew McWeeny mentioned that where he works now is more about web SEO, keywords and social tools.  He loves the writing but these are new (to him) and necessary parts of the job.

Robert Sanchez then turned a question to their moderator, Kevin Munroe and asked him how he feels about being a filmmaker and his take on the web.

Kevin said that he loves what he’s doing and enjoys the interactive environment.  If he needs to filter out some of the BS out there, he checks our panelists websites to verify some things.

We then were treated to a behind the scenes, raw footage filled preview of Dead of Night.

The preview looked pretty cool.  It will help change my image of Brandon Routh and what roles he’s able to play.

Kevin Munroe said that in making the film, you try to keep the tone of the original material as one adapts it.

Brandon Routh said he liked the few comics (that were in English) that he read that this was adapted from.

Anita Briem addressed the rumor about her fling with Megan Fox in New Orleans.  Basically Jonah Hex was in New Orleans at the same time they were there.  Supposedly Briem had a steamy affair with Fox, but she put the kibosh on that silly rumor.

When Brandon Routh was asked if there was any news on the next Superman project and he basically said no there wasn’t, but that it sounds like there is momentum out there and that he would be happy to jump on the train when that gets going.

Routh and Sam Huntington enjoyed working together again (they were both in Superman Returns).

To finish out the panel, Robert Sanchez tossed out some trivia questions, and the correct answers got 10 pairs of tickets given away to the Wrath of Con party on Friday night.  Of course, it seemed that hot chicks kept getting picked to answer the questions.  Nice!

Ever the popular thing to do, another comic book adaptation in the works is Dead of Night, a movie version of the Italian horror comic Dylan Dog, originally published in the mid-’80s. If you are an avid Screen Rant reader, you might not have heard of this adaptation (because we haven’t covered it until this point) – just so you know, it’s one that’s apparently been in the works for a little while now. Brandon Routh has already been cast in the lead role of Dylan, and Sam Huntington has been cast as his sidekick.

The film is said to contain all manner of beasts, including vampires, zombies and werewolves. With (from what I can gather), a particular emphasis on the vampire angle. As mentioned above Routh and Huntington have already been cast some time ago, but today the leader of the vampires we will see has been cast: Taye Diggs.

For those of you who can’t place him from his picture above or from his name, you may remember him from such films as Equilibrium, Chicago and Basic, and he still graces our TV screens in Private Practice. The makeup effects that will turn him into a bloodsucking vampire will be handled by Drac Studios. Don’t know the name? They just happened to do the amazing special effects makeup for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and that other little film called Watchmen… you may have heard of it…

Just for your information, this isn’t the first time a film has been made based on this original comic book. Back in 1994, Italian director Michele Soavi made a film called Dellamorte Dellamore (known abroad as Cemetery Man or Of Death and Love), which was based on a work by Tiziano Sclavi’s who created the Dylan Dog comic series.

Oh, and in case you’re interested in reading the original comics and are not fluent in Italian, American Publisher Dark Horse Comics published seven English language volumes between 1999 and 2002, with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola drawing the artwork for the covers.

Yeah, I bet that has your interest a bit more, eh?…

It’s strange that I’ve never heard of this project – I’m not a die hard comic book reader (I’ve dabbled, but only somewhat), so I can understand not having heard of it when it was just in that form. But I find it peculiar that it never caught my eye when it was originally announced, not least because Superman himself, Brandon Routh, has been cast not just in a cameo role but in the lead.

However, reading some details about it there are two things that instantly have my interest: That it will contains vampires, zombies and werewolves, and that the special effects makeup is being done by Drac Studios. What they did with Benjamin Button was downright mind boggling – an amazing, technical feat to come up with what they did – and what they contributed to Watchmen was just one of the awesome aspects of it (the more I think about that movie, the more I love it).

I wonder if this will get a significant budget (at least for its type), or whether they will go the low budget route and make the best of the little they get to spend on it (see Evil Dead and From Dusk Till Dawn as just a couple of examples). I’m sure I’m not alone in being surprised at Routh starring in the lead, especially considering he was freakin’ Superman a couple of years ago. This will undoubtedly be a much smaller film than Superman Returns was, so it’ll be interesting to see if we can accept him in a smaller role when not that long ago we were introduced to him as the Man of Steel.

I am kind of mixed on Taye Diggs – he’s certainly got a fair bit of charm and charisma about him, but his performances have not been spectacular so far. He’s not the worst actor in the world (although his laughable turn in Equilibrium would have ruined the movie if he was in it anymore than he was), but he definitely wouldn’t be my first choice if I was casting for the leader of a group of vampires. Someone who immediately springs to mind is Danny Houston – he was absolutely spectacular as the vampire leader in 30 Days of Night, and since that was also a comic book adaptation, I would see no problem with just bringing him back to play a vampire again in another film.

Although we’ll have to wait for more to come out about this one, for now I remain intrigued as to how it will turn out. Just remember Hyde Park and Platinum Studios (who are producing the film) – we’re talking about vampires, zombies and werewolves in the same movie… don’t screw this up!

So is there any fans of the original comic book series Dylan Dog out there? And what do you think of a movie version of it, including Taye Diggs playing the leader of the vampires?

Dead of Night is expected to be released sometime next year, but no official date has been set as of yet.

Source: ShockTillYouDrop