Lionsgate Films, the studio that has successfully adapted the Twilight saga and The Hunger Games novels, has recently announced that they will be adapting Double Take’s Z-Men comic. This is not the first time that Lionsgate is adapting a comic; earlier in 2004 it released a film based on Marvel Comics character, The Punisher and the film got a reboot in 2008 which failed miserably at the box-office.
Z-Men is the flagship title in Double Take’s recently-launched universe spinning out of the classic horror franchise Night of the Living Dead and has been written by Jeff McComsey. The story centers around a pair of government agents dealing with a zombie apocalypse. Since the cult classic, Night of The Living Dead which got released back in 1968 is in the public domain, it has seen innumerable sequels, remakes and spinoffs till date.
Double Take (2T) is a comic book publisher and a subsidiary of leading video game developer and publisher of Take-Two Interactive Software for the film adaptation of the comic book series Z-Men. Double Take Comics recently launched 10 different ongoing series all set in the town featured in Night of the Living Dead.
Lionsgate Films has been successfully giving some of the major hits films like Saw, The Expendables and many more and with Hunger Games final cusp approaching it’s been ramping up its franchise game: Greenlighting sequels to Now You See Me and John Wick, praying for a Last Witch Hunter saga.
This is the second project that Lionsgate has launched with Take-Two as earlier it was announced that it was developing a tentpole based on the videogame “Borderlands” with Avi and Ari Arad producing.
Double Take General Manager Bill Jemas said, “We look forward to seeing Lionsgate’s creativity transform the ‘Z-Men’ story into an exciting feature film, and everyone on the Double Take team is incredibly enthused at this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Till date we saw movies based on the DC and Marvel Comic universe but now the fever of adapting comics in films is slowly taking over and film makers are now roping in comic publishers other than these two big shots like Dark Horse Comics, Valiant Comics and now Double Take along with others.