Action writer Kurt Johnstad has been brought in to work on Prophet, Studio 8’s adaption of a comic book series by Deadpool co-creator Rob Liefeld.
Jake Gyllenhaal is attached to star and Sam Hargrave, the director of action hit Extraction, is on board to helm the adaptation.
The character, a man-out-of-time idea paired with a super soldier serum concept, was introduced by Liefeld in the pages of Youngblood, his creator-owned comic he wrote and drew after famously leaving Marvel in the early 1990s. The character was then spun off into his own book.
The comic focused on John Prophet, a man conscripted by Germans near the end of World War II and subjected to scientific experiments that gave him superhuman strength. (In a revival of the comic in the 2010s, the story was thrust 10,000 years into the future.)
In Studio 8’s project, Prophet is a man who volunteers for a German experiment near the end of World War II in order to feed his family. After a bombing buries him alive and traps him underground for 20 years, he reawakens in 1965 to a world that has moved on without him. His daughter now resents him while KGB agents are after him to create new super-soldiers from his blood.
Marc Guggenheim, the scribe known for his work on The CW’s Arrowverse TV shows, wrote the original script.
Jeff Robinov of Studio 8 is producing along with the company’s John Graham, Prime Universe Films’ Adrian Askarieh, as well as John Schoenfelder and Russel Ackerman. Gyllenhaall, Liefield and Brooklyn Weaver are also producing.
Johnstad is best known for writing 300, Zack Snyder’s epic adaptation of the acclaimed Frank Miller comic series, becaming a go-to for the action thriller set. More recently, he wrote the Charlize Theron Cold War action thriller, Atomic Blonde, which was directed by David Leitch, and reteamed with Snyder for Rebel Moon, the director’s massive sci-fi two-parter that is currently in production.
He is repped by UTA, Grandview, and Sloane Offer.
Read More: World News | Entertainment News | Celeb News
Hollywood
