Ron Howard just can’t stop picking up potential projects. Yesterday, it was reported that he was seriously interested in Formula One drama **Rush and now he’s attached to tackle a live-action adaptation of long-running comic strip Spy Vs Spy for Warner Bros.
The strip, which features dialogue-free, violence-laden encounters between two rival, pointy-faced spies (one dressed in white, the other in black), was first pitched to Mad Magazine by Antonio Prohias in the 1960s. While Prohias died in 1998, the strip has been kept running by Peter Kuper.
Now David Koepp is overseeing the development of a script written by John Kamps (who worked with him on Koepp’s latest directorial job, Premium Rush) with Howard and regular producer Brian Grazer looking to craft an action comedy from the concept. Given that it's at a truly early stage, don't expect to see this one for a while.
That said, between the news about the racing drama and now this new possible project, does anyone else get the creeping feeling that his epic, three-film-plus-TV-series adaptation of Stephen King’s Dark Tower stories might not actually be happening? Deadline’s story about Spy Vs Spy references the fact that Howard, Grazer and writer Akiva Goldsman are ready to turn in the next draft of the first Tower script to Universal so that the studio can make a decision about whether to go forward with the idea. And though Howard seems committed to the getting the story of gunslinger Roland Deschain to the screen, it’s still not quite guaranteed, even with the powerhouse trio in charge...