In 2014, we learned that busy director/producer James Wan had begun developing a graphic novel he conceived as a movie. Yet despite his own strong directorial career (he's just had another hit with [The Conjuring 2]http://www.empireonline.com/movies/conjuring-2-enfield-case/)), Wan is giving the job of wrangling Malignant Man to the screen to San Andreas' Brad Peyton.
Malignant Man is a weird superhero origin story focusing on a bloke named Alan Gates. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, he begins to accept the cards that fate has dealt him, only to learn that his tumour is not what he thinks at all. It’s actually a mysterious, supernatural parasite that grants him a new lease on life and a set of otherworldly powers to boot. Yet with his new powers come – you guessed it! – fresh responsibilities, because he’ll have to put his abilities to use battling an evil army out to destroy society.
Wan came up with the original concept for the graphic novel, but handed writing and art chores over to Michael Alan Nelson and Piotr Kowalski, with comics company Boom! handling the distribution.
20th Century Fox is on board to distribute the eventual movie and Zak Olkewicz has written a draft of the script, though Peyton may bring his own writers in. Peyton has recently been shooting 18th century fur trapping series Frontier for Netflix and is getting ready to reunite with Dwayne Johnson for video game adaptation Rampage.