Last week, Variety reported on plans to adapt the long running zombie comic series Deadworld into a feature franchise with Dark Hero Studios, Pandemonium and Framelight all serving as co-producers on the project. Screenwriter and Dark Hero Studios partner David Hayter (Watchmen, X-Men) will write the screenplay and former Fox studio head Bill Mechanic's Pandemonium will co-finance development with Framelight. Mechanic recently produced Coraline based on the Neil Gaiman novella and is also developing Ness for David Fincher (based on the Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko graphic novel Torso).Framelight Pictures first announced the option on the property last fall and is one of several properties optioned by co-founders by Robert L. Robinson Jr. and Jeffrey D. Erb. Deadworld creator Gary Reed will also executive produce.
The concept of Deadworld is a post-apocalyptic environment some four months after zombies have overrun mankind and the Dead overtake the Earth. The main protagonist is King Zombie, a motorcycle riding corpse who targets the remaining human survivors.
Forces of Geek had an opportunity to catch up with Robert L. Robinson Jr. about the project and what else is in the pipeline.
FOG!: When Framelight Productions was announced last year, Deadworld was among the first properties mentioned. What attracted you and Framelight partner Jeffery D. Erb to the comic as a film?
RLR: That’s a great question. Deadworld was at the top of the “wish list” when we first came up with the concept for Framelight. I’ve been reading it since it first came out and my library is still chock full of original Deadworld comics. I showed it to Jeff and we are presidents of each other’s mutual admiration societies so we have the upmost respect for the other’s thought and opinions. He was familiar with it, but not as intimate as I was but fully supported our going after that property.
Our next step was to chat with Gary Reed, the owner, writer and now creator and chief architect of the Deadworld Universe and share our vision for the property.
Gary had already been involved with Hollywood and King Zombie, Dan, John, Joey and the bunch with prior options, but nothing happened and they really didn’t get it. We got it. His vision was what we want to see on the screen. That scene in the early books with the Riverboat is classic and his approach to a brain dead, no pun intended genre has been nothing less than spectacular and when you see the new breed of quality zombie books like The Walking Dead, I think they owe as much to Gary Reed as they do to George Romero.
That’s the attraction to Deadworld. It’s not a “zombie comic.” It’s a “people in conflict” comic that just happens to take place on a world overrun by intelligent zombies. The characters are real, some good, some bastards, but they all remind you of someone you know and watching the social dynamic that happens with them, along with King Zombie thrown in, and it’s just a helluva lotta fun to read!
That’s a long answer for a short question.
Before this is even in production, you have Dark Hero Studios and Pandemonium in addition to creator Gary Reed as co-producers. What does each of the producers bring to the project?
First, everyone brings something different, fresh and dynamic to the table.
Jeff and I are entrepreneurs that have had success by developing our concepts and then executing them. Bill Mechanic is the glue. Hell, he’s more than that, he is the engine that drives the bus (if you read Deadworld, you know what bus I’m talking about).
My first exposure to Bill was a show on the Discovery Times Channel called "Hollywood, Inc." I never saw a studio executive, or in actually any business executive speak as open, frank and honestly as he did. Why I took the next step, I didn’t know at the time, but I researched Bill. Got his contact information, et cetera, and just filed it for the right opportunity.
Five years later, that opportunity was before us, when we founded Framelight, and I reached out to him. He got right back to me, so I set up a call for him, my partner Jeff and I to chat. We got along great and of all our properties, Deadworld was the one that really hit home for him. So, he then developed a list of writers and directors we should consider going after.
Stefan, that was a surreal moment, picking and choosing from creators I admired for this project. Jeff and I sent the list to Gary Reed, and it is important to note, that we keep the creators very involved in every step of the project. It’s his baby, and Gary had his opinions on who was on that list. Then a funny thing happened. Bill called and asked what we thought of David Hayter.
The list we had immediately got scrapped (and there were some great folks on that list that you would geek out over too!) and David and Dark Hero studio moved to the top of the list. Bill, David and David’s partner, Benedict Carver then started getting together and talking about Deadworld, and a wild universe based on Gary’s was starting to formulate.
Each of us has a different skill set, but in all honesty, right now much of the heavy lifting is now with Bill and David. This is the terrain they are expert in, and while we are involved, if you have Tarzan to guide you through the jungle, wouldn’t you have faith and follow him as oppose to trying to tell him which way to go?
So Jeff and I flew to LA for a week a few weeks back, and sat with the three of them and we brainstormed next steps, directions, and so on. There was a lot of give and take and the results of that are evident from the press release and how widely it was picked up.
What are your favorite Zombie films?I go back to the basics.
My all time favorite was the original Dawn of Dead. There is a magic to that film, that probably is stronger in my mind’s theater than the one I actually saw in a theater, but it was magical.
The opening when the crippled old priest is seen was classic horror, and it was just a thrill ride from that point forward. The gas station sequence was a hoot, the crazy hunters in the country were a holler, and then the adventure in the mall was great fun. From start to finish, that was a classic. The rest of the series didn’t hold any interest for me, but I enjoy the Resident Evil series, Danny Boyle’s landscape he created with 28 Days and Zach Snyder’s remake.
The granddaddy of them, the original Night of the Living Dead with the opening in the graveyard, “Barbara, they’re coming to get you,” dialog is fantastic. The movie moves too slowly for me, but that’s just me and my opinion and five bucks wouldn’t buy you a bad martini. It’s still great and revolutionary and created a genre that thankfully David Hayter is going to turn on its ear with his genius approach.
Framelight Productions is unique entity as you keep the original creator involved as the property is translated into another medium. Why do you think that in the past most creators have been excluded from the development process and why do you think it's important?
To be honest, in the past I don’t think Hollywood cared. I mean look at the track record. Ever see the first Wonder Woman with Cathy Lee Crosby or Captain America with Reb Brown...I know that somewhere was a trace of the heroes, but where it exactly was I don’t know.
When I was a kid in the 60s, I jumped and threw punches in the air every Tuesday and Thursday nights as we watched Batman. We could have cared less that the characters were but cartoon sketches of their comic book selves, if that makes sense. And even less than what we thought, was what the studio thought, as long as it was popular. If you go back the serials my parents grew up on, those films based on comics bared little resemblances to the source materials.
I think Michael Uslan to a great extent along with Richard Donner made a huge difference. When they did the first Batman and Superman reboots, and followed the mythology (and super heroes are our era’s gods and goddesses), people responded. But as the series became successful, studios went away from that and took the characters backwards not forward. Look at the first two X-Men films that Fox made because Bill greenlit them.
David’s scripts stayed true to the core of the characters and the mythos and the fans responded by spending their green. That’s why I love the new Batman series. The Dark Knight advanced from Batman Begins and I can’t wait to see what they do next, but they respected the Batman myth and reworked it with reverence.
It took Robert Rodriquez to really show the way, by inviting one of my all time favorite creators, Frank Miller to join him in the creative process that showed the power of keeping the creator involved.
Can you imagine if League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or From Hell or V for Vendetta had Alan Moore involved?
You could have great movies, because the source material was great and Alan Moore is one of the top five geniuses to ever work in the comic field!
Use him! Keep him happy!
His brain could be worth billions to the movie industry, but right now, it is as Ayn Rand would say, ‘on strike,’ and the fans respond accordingly.
Imagine if Shakespeare was given the same treatment as Alan Moore has been by most of Hollywood’s say ‘most of Hollywood,’ and I intentionally didn’t mention Watchmen, because David Hayter had Alan involved.
Every step of the way, it is clear from the script that David had Alan over his shoulder looking on, if only in his mind’s eye, as he knew that not only did he have to stay true to Alan and Dave Gibbons epic dream, but to the millions of loud and vocal fans out there.
He did a great job and as fans watch and rewatch their DVDs next month, I think they will come to see the absolute love and brilliance in that film, but that is rare thing, his devotion to the source material. I mean look at the history of comics in film. You could do a chart and track films that stay true to the comic and their box office and films that don’t stay true and their box office. It’s an amazing statistic that when Jeff and I did it, we knew that not only did it make artistic sense, but it made economic sense.
Would Coraline have been so brilliant if Bill and Henry Selick weren’t true to Neil’s vision or included his opinion in any changes?
I don’t think so. But they were smarter than the average bear and make a cooler than cool flick.
What else does Framelight have in its development queue?
We have a few cool projects in the hopper but I can’t go into them yet, as I don’t want to spoil the surprise. You won’t be disappointed! And I’ll keep sending you heads up so that the loyal readers here can spread the word.
Deadworld! That’s the new word...and the new world.
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