And the next comic book gone Hollywood is… Gerard Way’s The Umbrella Academy!
Who and what is that you ask? No freaking clue, but thanks to the interweb I’ve cobbled together some pieces of information for those of us not in the know… Way is a member of My Chemical Romance, which is a band. They create music for the MTV crowd. The Umbrella Academy is a two-series comic featuring an eclectic mix of superheroes trying to save the world. Wikipedia sums it up nicely:
The members of the Umbrella Academy, a disbanded group of superheroes, reunite after the death of their adoptive father, “Sir Reginald Hargreeves”. Hargreeves, an alien disguised as a famous entrepreneur, collected the members of the Umbrella Academy shortly after their birth and trained them to save the world from an unspecified threat. After his death, the members carry on his plan to save the world.”
Per /Film, Universal has picked up the rights for a film version and has hired screenwriter Mark Bomback to transition the comic from page to screen. Bomback’s most recent film is Race to Witch Mountain, but lest you hold that against him he also wrote the hideous Godsend with Robert DeNiro and the inane Deception with Ewan McGregor. His lone bright spot so far is Live Free Or Die Hard with Kevin Smith. Even though the odds aren’t with him, the material looks pretty promising so I’ll be looking forward to this one in 2012.
Have you read the comic? Could it make a good movie? Did you catch my title reference to the classic Mad Magazine movie starring Ralph Macchio?