Okay, now this is some big news, especially if you’ve read DC’s incredible comic book series, The American Way. Think Watchmen with politics that ring more contemporary and you’ll get the idea. Anyway, it’s being reported that John Ridley, Oscar winning writer of 12 Years A Slave, will pen and direct a movie version of the comics sequel The American Way: Those Above And Those Below for Blumhouse. That’s right, Blumhouse is getting into the superhero business, and the project does for the genre what The Purge does for horror.
Ridley created and wrote the 6-issue series with artist Georges Jeanty, taking place in a parallel version of the United States. In the 1940s the U.S. government created the Civil Defense Corps, a team of public superheroes who would fight manufactured supervillains, alien invasions, communism, all of the country’s biggest battles in front of an adoring public through the use of television. When African-American hero Jason Fisher is discreetly inserted into the group as the New American, problems begin to arise within the team.
The story will be set in 1972, picking up the story a decade later when racial tensions and being exposed as a propaganda sham have split the team apart, sending them off in different directions. Fisher is still living the life of a crimefighter, although he is conflicted about helping a system rigged against the African-American people.
A few years ago Ridley was supposed to be developing a Marvel TV series that would reinvent a popular character. Obviously that never panned out but it may have been for the better. And it’ll be interesting to see if Blumhouse can find the same magic with superheroes that they have with horror.
