Ridley Scott’s vamps

Writer John Logan is preparing to peck at the keys again for his GLADIATOR director Ridley Scott. (And for a handsome seven-figure fee.)

Logan is penning THE PASSAGE, an adaptation of a yet-to-be-published vampire novel by Jordan Ainsley (aka Justin Cronin). In the story, “terminally ill patients become healthy after they are bitten by bats in South America, and the government conducts secret tests on human subjects to see if the virus can cure illness. The result is an apocalyptic unleashing of bloodthirsty vampire test subjects that include death row inmates.”

Fox 2000 already plunked down seven figures for the rights to the book, for which publisher Ballantine paid $3.75 million. So it better be one unforgettable book…

Scott is producing and also eyeballing the director’s chair, but the 71-year-old is probably going to need a few injections of V-juice himself if he’s going to keep up with a schedule that purportedly includes an ALIEN prequel and the dozen other producing/directing projects on his plate.

Logan has experience with deadly bats — he wrote the schlocky 1999 horror flick BATS (before going on to Oscar noms for GLADIATOR and THE AVIATOR. Now that’s progression). He also recently worked on the script for the videogame adaptation of BIOSHOCK.