Typical. You make one low-budget, extremely successful superhero-style teen drama with style and panache and suddenly every studio in town is chasing after you to bring your talent to their comic-book movie... Chronicle director Josh Trank is already being sought to try to make Sony’s Venom film work and now Warner Bros. has secured his services for Image title adaptation The Red Star.
Christian Gossett’s award-winning work imagines an alternate USSR where advanced technology lives comfortably side-by-side with magic. The sprawling stories encompass giant flying fortresses, a heroic married couple, souls, spirits, cruel dictators and vengeful gods.
Universal nabbed up the rights to the book back in 2006, and quickly set Timur Bekmambetov (then still best known for his not-quite-completed Night Watch trilogy) the task of developing the film version. But though it seemed like a good match of film and filmmaker, it languished unloved as Bekmambetov focused on Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.
Now Warners clearly thinks that Trank might just be the man to get it on its feet, with Jason Rothenberg writing the script. Rothenberg has most recently worked on the new Twilight Zone script, which Matt Reeves is considering as one of his next directing jobs.