Tobey Maguire And Neil Moritz To Produce Comic Book Adaptation Afterburn

"Bad cat."

Before we begin, no, not Afterburner the video game, it's Afterburn, and it still sounds pretty cool. Tobey Maguire and Neil Moritz (I Am Legend, xXx) are producing a feature film adaptation of the sci-fi comic book Afterburn, which follows a group of treasure-hunters for hire in the future who "recover" exotic valuables from an Earth half-destroyed by a solar flare. For instance, in the first issue which hit in January from upstart Red 5 Comics, the team must claim the Mona Lisa from a Louve in shambles. The devastating solar flare has left a wily world roamed by mutants, rival pirates and assorted derelicts that would make a pass on your sister. A director is not attached, but hopefully the tone is more I Am Legend than National Treasure, because the premise is grand.

Red 5 Comics is getting a round of applause today from film sites because the founders, who also wrote Afterburn, are online pioneers of geekdom (which is now cooler than hipsterdom). Obviously, they just hit it big. Paul Ens is a co-founder of the precocious Star Wars site TheForce.net and went on to be the director of Lucasfilm's official site StarWars.com. Somewhere Steven Brill shudders like Little Nicky. His pal Scott Chitwood co-founded TheForce and contributes to the film news sites ComingSoon.com and Superhero Hype.com.

The latter Red 5 geek describes Afterburn as "Indiana Jones meets Mad Max, but instead of ancient artifacts in cob-webbed temples in traditional pulp adventure" the characters raid more contemporary treasures from felled museums et al. Congrats to them both from Slashfilm, now go buy some castles and dent some Ferraris. If you're wondering, Maguire is currently plotting his Robotech film for the big screen. No word if he'll be starring in Ens's and Chitwood's vision.

Discuss: Sounds like Afterburn will make a good sci-fi movie, no? Anyone got a similar geek success story they'd like to share?

Source Link: HR / ComingSoon