Many assumed that Josh Trank (27) would follow up his break-out hit film, Chronicle with a major studio blockbuster. However, it was assumed that it would be adapting a new take Marvel's first family, The Fantastic Four for 20th Century Fox. However, Sony jumped into the fray, reportedly seeking the young filmmaker to re-imagine Venom for a solo film, after a less than stellar representation in Spider-Man 3.
However, neither studio was able to corral Trank it seems as his next film will indeed be a comic book adaption, however it will be for Warner Bros. and on the little-known comic book series The Red Star, which was originally at Universal Pictures. Jason Rothenberg (The Twilight Zone) will write the script for the comic originally written by Christian Gossett. Neal Moritz (I Am Legend, 21 Jump Street, Prison Break) will produce.
No word yet on whether Fox or Sony will wait for Trank to finish Red Star for WB or if they will move on to a different director for their projects.
Seeing as how Trank took a film with a $12 million dollar budget and turned it into a $116 million dollar success I hope either Sony or Fox (hell both) wait for Trank to finish up Red Star instead of looking at other directors.
The Red Star is a comic book series by Christian Gossett set in a sci-fi/fantasy world described by Gossett as "Mythic [Soviet] Russia". The "Lands of The Red Star" were inspired by both Russian folklore and military history. The series is thus heavily reminiscent of a post-World War II Soviet Russia mixing technology and sorcery.
The 'United Republics of the Red Star', often simply called the 'State' in the comic, are shown to be coterminous with the historical Soviet Union in a map at the beginning of the first issue. The main enemy of the first novels, Al'Istaan, is a stand-in for historical Afghanistan and occupies a similar area of the map.
