Corona | Coming Attractions

Spider-Man trilogy filmmaker Sam Raimi has attached himself to another comic book property, this time to one you haven't heard before. Earp: Saints for Sinners is the title of a forthcoming Radical Publishing three-issue comic book series, with the first ish slated for publication this summer.

Radical is a new player in the comic book world and one that has some heavy clout to get its projects optioned with Hollywood. The Last Days of American Crime has Avatar's Sam Worthington attached to star/produce; Freedom Formula is in development with Bryan Singer's Bad Hat Harry Productions; a Hercules film is set up over at Universal, with director Peter Berg developing it; and there's one called Caliber that Johnny Depp's Infinitum Nihil is working on. So, in short, it looks like Radical has some investment bucks to develop and release one-shot or mini-series, and then shops around the screen rights to their projects before the first issue of said title comes out. These days it's a standard operating procedure if you want to get your movie production career going. Unfortunately, it also means that every new publisher out there is optioning the screen rights to their comic book -- oh, sorry, graphic novel -- but that doesn't mean that the movie of it will ever escape the confines of development hell.

This new Earp property is a retelling of the real-life story involving lawman Wyatt Earp and the gunfight at the OK Corral. Here's how Radical describes their property, with the synopsis coming straight off their website:

"In a world where the American economy has all but collapsed to the levels of the Great Depression, infamous bandits roam the country and the law is as corrupt as the criminals its sworn to stop. Yet one lawman remains a steadfast moral compass for the people: WYATT EARP. Earp has collared more most-wanted men than anyone in history – but after a violent assignment claims the life of his brother, Wyatt sets out to forge a simple life in the only boomtown left: Las Vegas. With gorgeous women and free-flowing money on endless tap, Sin City attracts more people than a modern gold rush. Though Earp no longer wears a U.S. Marshall’s badge, his past is about to catch up to him. \With nearly everything to lose, Earp will have to beat the odds stacked against him in order to bring old-fashioned justice to Sin City."

The Earp movie is now set up at DreamWorks. Mandeville Films partners David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman are producing along with Radical president Barry Levine and Raimi's producing partner Josh Donen. Matt Cirulnick, a writer whose biggest credit is creating and writing nine episodes of a dead 2006 UPN TV series called South Beach, is writing the Earp screenplay. He also co-created it.

Raimi's also still attached to the Warcraft movie and doesn't have a go picture lined up yet in his post-Spider-Man world.