Enter Area 52

Toss yet another title on the growing list of comic book properties on their way to becoming big-screen features (some far more slowly than others – I’m hoping Zack Snyder finally gets WATCHMEN to theaters). The Image Comics series AREA 52 has been snapped up by production company Benderspink for a potential feature treatment.

The comic, from writer Brian Haberlin, follows a group of soldiers guarding a remote military storage facility where unique items and artifacts are kept (things like alien weaponry, Thor’s hammer, and the Ark of the Covenant). When a lethal extraterrestrial escapes containment, the team of misfits must use the crated objects on hand to defeat it. This is actually the second time this relatively simplistic but unquestionably commercial property has been optioned since its publication a few years ago – it was previously set up as a possible Universal movie.

Benderspink are no strangers to adapting works – previous efforts A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and the US version of THE RING were based on graphic novel material, while other properties in their pile include STAR BLAZERS and comic series EX MACHINA, Y THE LAST MAN and POWER AND GLORY.