Garth Ennis’ Crossed to Get Movie Adaptation

Crossed, a series from The Boys creator Garth Ennis and his Babs collaborator Jacen Burrows, has been optioned for a film adaptation. Ennis has reportedly already written a screenplay for the adaptation, which takes place in a world not too dissimilar from a zombie apocalypse. In Crossed, the world is facing a raging pandemic, and those who get sick have a cross-shaped rash on their face and are driven to act out their most evil thoughts. The disease leads people to become homicidal maniacs, but unlike other zombie stories, here they retain their intellect and are just driven mad.

Per THR, Six Studios has acquired the screenplay, and they plan to finance the movie. Ennis has already had success in the TV space, with both Preacher and The Boys being adapted for the small screen, and like those projects, Crossed leans into violence and vulgarity, so it’s hard to imagine the movie won’t carry a hard R-rating.

According to the story, the movie is inspired by the first ten-issue arc of Crossed. The series originally ran from 2008 until 2010, and then spawned a number of miniseries, which ran until 2015. All told, there are more than 200 issues collected in 24 trade paperback collections between 2010 and 2017. Other creators who worked on the comics include Alan Moore, David Lapham, and Si Spurrier.

Six Studios are currently looking for a director for the movie.

As noted, Ennis and Burrows have reteamed for Babs, a new swords-and-sorcery comedy from Ahoy! Comics. The first issue was released in comic shops last week.

“I’d been thinking about sword & sorcery since I did Hawk the Slayer for Rebellion. It’s a pretty goofy, lazy sort of a genre a lot of the time, but it can also be a lot of fun,” Ennis recently told ComicBook. “Jacen and I have been working together for 20 years, and have built up a pretty damn good creative rapport. He’s a great storyteller and can handle pretty much anything, but there’s a real clarity and precision to his storytelling that makes humour in particular that bit simpler to convey.”

There is no set release date for Crossed yet. The second issue of Babs will be available in stores on September 18th.