Brett Ratner's supposed to be busy working on **Conan **and Mr S: My Life With Frank Sinatra, but that isn't stopping him from adding another few projects to his slate, with Youngblood added to his To Do list as director.
Youngblood is an adaptation of the Image comics title about a group of government sponsored young superheroes who are celebrities in their world - think Fantastic Four with really big hair. The none-more-80s line-up included a teenager made of rock and a Russian supermodel with purple skin, and at one point a rather clever run saw an Alan Moore run provide a sort of meta-critique on the superhero story, as one superhero wrote another out of existence using the mythical Book Of All Stories. Clever! But the series was plagued by bad reviews and late issues, and has never made it to the big leagues.
Ratner said of the comic that, "Most of the great graphic novels are gone, and ‘Youngblood’ is one of the few comicbooks left with tentpole potential. It was a real personal passion project for me.”
Ratner's also got the rights to French comic Fly Wires* as producer, and is renaming that Infinity and setting it up for Stomp the Yard's Sylvain White to direct, with Master and Commander's John Collee writing the script - an intriguing mix of CVs if ever we saw one.
Both films are being fast-tracked, although it's not clear yet where and when they'll be made, studio-wise. But now, let the fanboy discussion commence!
*So Variety calls it - we can find no trace of this particular title.