Tag Archives: universal television

CannyLads Lands Joshua Hale Fialkov and Joe Infurnari’s The Bunker

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The Bunker
Cover by Joe Infurnari

Deadline broke the news that Julie Anne Robinson has launched five projects through her CannyLads production company. One of which is The Bunker based on the comic series by Joshua Hale Fialkov.

The project is coming from Universal Television which is a division of NBCUniversal Content Studios. Robinson has a first-look deal with them.

Fialkov will exec produce The Bunker which he co-created with Joe Infurnari.

The story is about a group of friends who discover a bunker in the woods that shows proof that in the future the friends are responsible for a global apocalypse. From there, they must decide if they can change the future and how they will suffer for it. There’s of course so many more twists and turns, we’re not spoiling the surprise.

The series published by Oni Press is one of the many series that have been a shock they haven’t been snatched up already for development.

Fialkov is no stranger to television. Beyond comics, he’s written episodes for Alibi, The Code, Young Justice, Skylanders, Chicago Med, Ultimate Spider-Man, and so many more. He is also the co-producer on the 2019 television series The Code.

AfterShock Comics and Universal Television Partner to Develop the Lost City Explorers

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AfterShock Comics has inked another TV deal, bringing The Lost City Explorers to the small screen. In partnership with creator Zack Kaplan, AfterShock has signed a deal with Universal Television to produce the title.

The Lost City Explorers is a sci-fi series focused on a group of teens who become underground urban explorers after a mysterious expedition leads to the disappearance of one of their fathers. Following his tracks on a coming-of-age journey through subterranean tunnels, they ultimately find the holy grail of lost cities, Atlantis, buried right under New York City. The book is written by Zack Kaplan with art from Alvaro Sarraseca and colors from Dee Cunniffe.

Zack has emerged as a breakout, new voice in comics. In only two short years he’s launched three on-going sci-fi series with his debut hits Eclipse and Port of Earth for Image/Top Cow and most recently with The Lost City Explorers.

Zack Kaplan will serve as an Executive Producer and writer. Lee Kramer and Jon Kramer from AfterShock Media will also serve as Executive Producers.

Morrison and Del Rey’s Sinatoro Gets Pick up by Universal Television

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SinatoroUniversal Television, Depth Of Field, and Black Mask Studios are going out to directors with a drama television series based on the forthcoming Black Mask comic Sinatoro by Grant Morrison and Vanesa R. Del Rey from a pilot script by American Odyssey and Heroes’ Adam Armus, Kay Foster and Morrison. Depth Of Field’s Andrew Miano, Chris Weitz, and Paul Weitz and Black Mask Studios’ Matt Pizzolo and Brett Gurewitz will executive produce with Armus, Foster, Morrison, Kristan Morrison and Adam Egypt Mortimer. The team intends to partner with a director and then take to buyers with the studio.

The comic book series Sinatoro tells of a soldier on a strange mission that takes him into a sinister landscape of American mythologies, melding the Tibetan Book of the Dead with the Great American Road Movie for Morrison’s masterwork on Life, Death, and America. Armus, Foster, and Morrison’s script is a faithful adaptation of the long anticipated work that has been a passion project of Morrison’s for years.

In the release, Morrison said:

Sinatoro reimagines American pop culture as a whole new mythology. It’s about life, death, sex, romance and everything in between.  This is one of my favorite stories and I’m excited to see it finding new life as a television series where we have more opportunity and potential to develop the ideas and characters.

The comic series had been promoted since August of 2015, but hasn’t been released. Black Mask has said the comic will finally hit shelves in 2017.

The Wicked + The Divine is Being Adapted for Television

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Wicked+Divine01_CoverADeadline has reported (and their post Tweeted by the creators) that the comic series The Wicked + The Divine is heading to television. The Image Comic series by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, and Matt Wilson is being launched by Universal Television through the deal Universal struck with fellow comic creators Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick‘s company Milkfed Criminal Masterminds. The deal between Fraction, DeConnick, and Universal has those two developing and adapting their own concepts, but also other comic creator’s ideas too.

The series is about gods as the ultimate pop stars. Every ninety years, twelve gods incarnate as humans. They are loved. They are hated. In two years, they are dead. Just because you’re immortal, doesn’t mean you’re going to live forever.

The Wicked + The Divine launched in June 2014 and was on 30 of the 202 different “best of” lists we tracked last year, including a few top spots. We gush about the series constantly.

Gillen has appeared on Graphic Policy Radio, which you can listen to here.