Writers Bob Layton and David Michelinie are working on “Shambler,” a bigscreen adaptation of their comicbook.
Touted as an action-horror-comedy, “Shambler” centers on a scientist who creates a serum that reanimates dead tissue. He’s murdered but reanimated by associates as a mummy encased in black-and-yellow crime scene tape.
Pic, budgeted at $4 million, is being touted at Cannes by Anne Marie Gillen, whose Hollywood lineage includes exec producing “Fried Green Tomatoes” and co-writing Variety’s “The Producer’s Business Handbook.”
Layton and Michelinie are authors of many of the “Iron Man” comic book stories and created characters, including Rhodey Rhodes and Justin Hammer (played by Don
Cheadle and Sam Rockwell, respectively in “Iron Man 2”).
“They have a huge following so this idea is really franchisable and really fun,” Gillen told Variety. “We’re planning to deliver the finished film next year at Cannes.”
Gillen is producing for financier Odyssey Pictures Corp. with Maury Rogow and Ralph Boral. Odyssey’s John Foster, Layton and Michelinie are exec producing and the screenplay has been penned by Steve Barr, Layton and Michelinie.
Gillen and Foster are out to directors. Gillen’s resume includes serving as an exec at Hemdale, Morgan Freeman’s Revelations and Entertainment Business Group.
Odyssey Pictures is in production on “Hank the Cowdog,” its animation feature about a smart-aleck canine who heads security on a Texas ranch.
