Director Rick Famuyiwa might not be helming the Flashpoint movie anymore, but his next project will adapt a beloved comic book. It’s not likely to be one you’d expect.
A new report from the Hollywood Reporter indicates the Dope director signed on to write and direct a film based on Charles Burns’ seminal comic Black Hole. The 12-issue series came out over a decade-plus period from 1993 to 2004 through Fantagraphics, and has remained popular among indie comics fans in its collected form.
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The series chronicles the lives of various teenagers in the ’70s, many of whom contract a sexually transmitted disease that is referred to as “the Bug.” The disease causes unique body-morphing mutations that vary from person to person, with no two results being the same.
The mutations end of drastically changing many of the teens, who run away from home and begin living with each other in the woods. The story focuses on four specific teens, showing how their lives are changed by the disease and their relationships with their friends.
Black Hole was also featured prominently in Matt Reeves’ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, in which Kodi-Smit McPhee’s character gives a copy of the collected comic to Maurice, the evolved orangutan.
The project was in development for years at Paramount Pictures, with Neil Gaiman and David Fincher both involved for a short time.
Black Hole will now be released through New Regency and Plan B, which produced 12 Years a Slave and The Big Short previously.
Famuyiwa has had a string of hits in recent years, most notably the new hood classic Dope, which focuses on a straight-A student forced to sell drugs that were misplaced in his backpack.
He also helmed the HBO film Confirmation, starring Kerry Washington as Anita Hill, involving the alleged sexual harassment at the hands of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.
Famuyiwa was attached to direct the Flashpoint movie, but dropped out of the project after creative differences with Warner Bros. The movie is now rumored to be helmed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who co-wrote a draft of Spider-Man: Homecoming. Famuyiwa recently threw shade at Warner Bros. after Black Panther outgrossed Justice League‘s entire box office haul in less than two weeks.
There is no word yet on when Black Hole is expected to release in theaters.
