Comics I Am Legion and The Zombies That Ate the World head to the screen

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Producer Pierre Spengler, whose credits include the Salkind SUPERMAN films and the last two PUMPKINHEAD sequels, has teamed with French comic book publisher Humanoids to shepherd adaptations of four of their properties to the screen. The best part about this news? Half of them are horror.

Richard Stanley (HARDWARE, DUST DEVIL) is the screenwriter handling the adaptation of Fabien Nury and John Cassady's I AM LEGION, a supernatural thriller with a World War II setting:

Europe, December 1942. The global conflict has reached a fever pitch. The Nazis are at the height of their power, but the Allies have had their first victories both in Stalingrad and in the Pacific. Never has the war's outcome been so much in doubt. Amidst this chaos, the destinies of several men will cross through a project code named "Legion," which consists of a series of horrific tests that a young Romanian girl with apparent supernatural abilities must undergo. Her 'skills,' if fully exploited by the Nazis, would give them unimaginable power…

Nacho Cerdà is set to direct. Stanley and Cerdà previously collaborated on the 2006 film THE ABANDONED.

In the hands of Anouk Whissell, Yoann-Karl Whissell, and Francois Simard, the trio behind the recent festival hit TURBO KID, is the adaptation of Jerry Frissen's futuristic zombie spoof THE ZOMBIES THAT ATE THE WORLD, a book that has been compared to SHAUN OF THE DEAD, ZOMBIELAND, and the work of Judd Apatow, and has drawn praise from Tobe Hooper, George A. Romero, and Joe Dante.

Los Angeles, 2064. In a world where humans have to live along the living dead, a new job opportunity arises: zombie catcher. Karl Neard, his sister Maggie, and his Belgian friend Freddy Merckx, all embrace this "career" in the hope of making easy money. Unfortunately, the job is not that simple: not only are the "dead" still walking, but they also have a terrible stench and an awful sense of humor. As a matter of fact, zombies just don't care about anything, as their lives are behind them and they now have an eternity to enjoy what is left of the world. Karl and his team will quickly find this fact out as they end up surrounded by all sorts of ghoulish freaks.

Spengler will be working with French production company Full House on the films. 

I haven't read either comics, but these projects sound appealing to me in very different ways. I AM LEGION takes a dark, serious approach to an intriguing concept with a touch of real world horror, while THE ZOMBIES THAT ATE THE WORLD just sounds like ridiculous fun. I'll be checking both out for sure.

Although not horror, the other two Spengler/Humanoids properties do warrant a mention: MISS is a film noir story set in 1930s Harlem that has been in development with executive producer Spike Lee for a while now, and cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky is writing the adaptation of BOUNCER, a Western comic book he created about a one-armed gunslinger who works as a saloon bouncer. Bring on all of these, I say.