Producer Seth Rogen and screenwriter Mattson Tomlin are staying in the business of comic book adaptations with the pair developing a feature adaptation of the BOOM! Studios comic Memetic from writer James Tynion IV and artist Eryk Donovan. Tomlin, who recently penned the screenplay for The Batman and is writing the feature adaptation of Mega Man, wrote the script for the adaptation. Rogen will produce the film with his Point Grey partners Evan Goldberg, James Weaver and Josh Fagen. Deadline reports that the project has landed at Lionsgate.
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Originally published in 2014, the series is officially described as follows: “A meme is an idea that starts with an individual, and then virally spreads to multiple persons and potentially entire societies. Richard Dawkins suggests a meme’s success comes from its effectiveness to the host. But history shows that destructive memes can spread just as rapidly through society. Memetic shows the progression of a weaponized meme that leads to the utter annihilation of the human race within 72 hours. The root of this apocalypse is a single image on the internet, a ‘meme’ in the popular sense. A meme that changes everything.”
This marks the latest in a string of comic book adaptations for Rogen who previously produced the TV adaptations of Preacher and The Boys plus The Green Hornet feature film in 2011 and the in-development Invincible at Universal Pictures and Fear Agent at Amazon Studios.
For a few years now BOOM! Studios has had a first look deal with 20th Century Fox, which remains in place even after the acquisition of the studio by The Walt Disney Company. Fox even purchased a minority stake in the company before being absorbed, something that is also now owned by Disney after the merger.
The studio previously cancelled another major BOOM! adaptation that was in development at Fox before the acquisition, with the live-action Lumberjanes comic officially being cancelled. In addition it seems like other major projects based on BOOM! comics have been passed on by Disney as it was previously reported that Netflix nabbed up the rights to The Unsound.
For Tynion IV this marks his latest forray into have his comic book work adapted. His comic series The Woods was previously in development for a TV series at SYFY and is now being developed for NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service. Tynion IV recently took over full time as the lead writer on DC Comics’ Batman following the conclusion of Tom King’s run.
