As Comic-Con kicks off, it’s not that surprising to learn that two names regularly discussed at the event would be collaborating. But still it’s interesting to note that Dark City director Alex Proyas is working on bringing Hellboy creator Mike Mignola’s graphic novel Joe Golem And The Drowning City to our screens.
Mignola crafted the book with prolific novel / comics scribe Christopher Golden, and it follows an odd group of people (this is a Mignola title, after all) as they battle to save an alternate 1970s Manhattan. Our heroes are an orphaned teenage girl, an older magician, a Victorian occult detective and his sidekick, the titular Joe, who has strange dreams about a history he can’t recall.
Proyas is writing the script and wants to make the eventual film in Australia. As usual, it’s not the only project he’s got squatting in his hopper: the writer-director has also been working up a take on Robert Heinlein’s The Unpleasant Profession Of Jonathan Hoag and entered talks with Summit to make mortals vs ancients pic Gods Of Egypt. If his experience with Paradise Lost is anything to go by, we could be in for a wait to see any of them, though Hoag appears to be in pre-production as Proyas tracks down a cast.