Netflix Teams Up With Roy Lee And Zach Cregger to Tackle Brian Michael Bendis-Marc Andreyko Acclaimed Graphic Novel Torso

Coming To The Screen After Twenty Years?

Over at The Hollywood Reporter, they have just announced that an adaptation of one of Tripwire’s favourite graphic novels Torso by Brian Bendis and Marc Andreyko is being developed as a Netflix film. Here’s a few details…

An adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel by Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko that has been winding its way around Hollywood for over two decades is alive once again.

Netflix has picked up the movie rights to the work and is in early development on a feature adaptation of the true-crime story revolving around Elliot Ness. The deal comes after a brief but intense bidding war and is said to be in the seven figures for the rights.

No writer or director are attached yet, but the producing team is stacked. Vertigo Entertainment’s Roy Lee has partnered once again with his Weapons filmmaker Zach Cregger, who will produce (but not direct) via his Subconscious production banner. Alex Hedlund and Nick Antosca will produce via their shingle, Eat the Cat, known for prestige, true-life fare such as Candy and A Friend of the Family.

Bendis and Andreyko will exec produce.

The graphic novel, initially published by Image Comics as a six-issue limited series, told the true story of Ness’ time after his famous Al Capone escapades. After he moved to Cleveland, he and got embroiled in the hunt for a serial killer who was leaving torsos in the river and taunting notes to police. Bendis and Andreyko wrote the story, with Bendis doing the art.

Torso’s “The Untouchables meets Zodiac” tones attracted Hollywood early on. In the early 2000s, Zodiac filmmaker David Fincher himself was going to direct an adaptation for Paramount as a follow-up to his serial killer masterpiece and even had Matt Damon attached and a script by Ehren Kruger. It also had Bill Mechanic, Don Murphy and Spawn creator Todd McFarlane producing. At the last moment, Paramount blinked and let the rights lapse. It thought the budget was too high, and Fincher’s desire to do it in black-and-white didn’t help quell fears of commerciality.

In 2013, David Lowery, who had drawn heat for his Sundance film Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, wrote a script he was due to direct in a version that would have been produced by Circle of Confusion, the shingle behind AMC’s The Walking Dead.

There was a detour in 2017 that would have seen Paul Greengrass direct a Brian Helgeland script when the project was titled Ness while in the early 2020s, Corin Hardy (The Nun, Gangs of London) was developing a version.

Torso’s new deal was signed in late November.

Read the whole story here