Movies
James Farr’s ‘Xombie’ Getting Big Screen Treatment!
It’s about freakin’ time! Literally years after being promoted here on Bloody Disgusting (five years to be exact), James Farr’s online animated horror series Xombie could be getting the big screen treatment thanks to DreamWorks! The studio is in negotiations to buy Xombie, a pitch about a zombie who is also a policeman, from cop-turned-scribe Will Beall, with Kurtzman and Orci in talks to produce. Read on for the skinny.
Watch the online animated series tat started it all here.
“Xombie” is based on a Devil’s Due comic book by James Farr, itself based on his online animated series. Farr’s creation centers on a zombie cop named Dirge who attempts to saves humanity’s remnants, particularly a young girl named Zoe, from evil zombies.
Beall, repped by CAA and Management 360, also is adapting his debut novel “L.A. Rex,” about a policeman patrolling the gang-ridden area of the 77th Division in South Los Angeles, for producer Scott Rudin.
DreamWorks is in negotiations to acquire the source material. The logline for the movie version is being kept under wraps.
If deals are closed, Cindi Rick and John Frank Rosenbaum of Epic Level Entertainment would exec produce along with Kurtzman/Orci’s Bobby Cohen and Steven T. Puri.
Beall is a former beat cop and anti-gang policeman in the 77th Division who recently became a homicide detective; he continues to serve in the LAPD while writing.
Like vampires, zombies are gaining currency in Hollywood, with Sony set to release Woody Harrelson zombie-comedy “Zombieland” next month. DreamWorks is developing “Rainbow’s Bridge,” based on the Japanese pic “Resurrection,” which centers on a group of the undead as they return to the lives they once led.
In addition to writing tentpoles such as “Star Trek” and “Transformers,” Kurtzman and Orci have taken on a number of projects as producers, boarding, among others, a family-action movie based on the View-Master toy that’s been set up at DreamWorks, and “Matt Helm,” a government thriller set up at Amblin and Paramount.
Steven Zeitchik reported from New York; Borys Kit reported from Los Angeles.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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