Exclusive: Mark Millar's War Heroes Vs. Grunts
My Hollywood spies claim there is a battle going on behind the scenes over two conflicting big screen adaptions, neither of which have been officially announced. The projects in this development rumble include:
Mark Millar's comic book War Heroes
and
Shannon Eric Denton and Keith Giffen's comic book Grunts.
According to my source, a film adaptation of Millar's new comic has been making its way around Hollywood, but executives are crying fowl because Grunts came out first and has a similar concept. Apparently Grunts has also been in development for a couple years. Rumor has it that Steve Buscemi might be in talks to star and produce the film with the same guys behind his upcoming film, Saint John of Las Vegas. But it is a double sided dagger, and the conflict might prevent Grunts from moving forward, especially if the star and producer were to get cold feet and jump ship.
Millar describes War Heroes as "Full Metal Jacket meets The X-Men". The series is "set a couple of years in the future. John McCain has just won the election and the war in the Gulf is getting bigger, so they give the troops superpower pills. That gets all the young American kids signing up to fight the Iraqis."
Grunts is described as "24 meets the X-Men" with "Tom Clancy on speed" military style action. The pitch: "During World War II, an American squad encounters a German superhuman assault squad and starts a Eugenics Race that carries into present day! "