Whiteout: the movie

Ok, now I know almost no one reading this will know the source material, but if you're a comic fan you might have heard of one of the industry's most exciting rising stars Greg Rucka. He is probably best known for the super cool, realistic spy series Queen & Country, and is currently writing the DC hit series 52. Prior to a lot of this fame though he put out a really solid graphic novel called Whiteout. It's the story of a US Marshall, Carrie Stetko who has moved to Antarctica to escape her past only to find herself faced with the task of tracking down a serial killer. Its a smart, intriguing thriller that I'd highly recommend. In fact I just lent it to my friend Jan to read last week, and he seemed to really like it. So I'm sure he'll be happy to hear the news that I saw this morning. Variety is reporting that Dark Castle Productions, has raised $240 Million in investment capitol to make 15 more films over the course of the next 6 years including an adaptation of Whiteout. Dark Castle is known for it's low budget kinda crappy yet extremely successful horror films The Grudge 1 & 2, Gothika, House of Wax, and the awesomely bad Ghost Ship (which I love). Dark Castle is the "indie" horror imprint of Warner and is headed up by Joel Silver (of Matrix fame). Apparently Whiteout is the first film on their list to make with their newfound wealth, and I couldn't be happier. This is part of their new plan to expand the production label to encompass not just horror flicks, but action and comedy. Seems like a good plan, and I think Whiteout will translate extremely well onto the screen.

I often try to extol the virtue of comics to people who don't read them. Mostly the uneducated think that it's all just superheroes and spandex, when really it hasn't been just that in a long, long time. Since the mid 90s though when the indie books became mainstream (as it does eventually in a lot of art), we started getting really serious adult books that pretty much surprise everyone who is willing to honestly give them a chance. Greg Rucka is one of those writers that I always push into non comic book people's hands, because he writes so true, and smart. This is action, don't get me wrong, but Rucka writes anything easily as good if not better than your average thriller or action film because it has solid character development and well thought out stories behind it. If you're interested you can buy the Whiteout graphic novel on Amazon.com for a mere $10.16, there's also a sequel called Whiteout: Melt which I have yet to read. I'd better go now. Later.