Alien Legion Film moving Forward?

Back in my earlier comic book collecting days, a little title called Alien Legion taught me that there was more to those illustrated frames of storytelling than just candy coated superheroes, transformers and mutants.

That gritty dark character driven book was called Alien Legion. I was instantly in love. It also featured art by my all time favourite artist Larry Stroman. Well news of a feature film seemed all but dead, until now that we get a glimmer of hope that things are in fact moving forward… a little.

/Film shares:

USA Today has the big Alien Legion article. (It is a major US paper, like it or not.) I’d known that the series had been optioned some time ago, and also that Derek Haas and Michael Brandt (the Wanted and 3:10 to Yuma remake team) are the writers currently on board.

Without having any direct quotes saying that, yes, the film really is going to happen, USA Today’s writer (seemingly quite a fan of the comic) pushes the notion that it is very much a going concern. “Legion is painted on an immense canvas,” says former Legion artist and current Legion omnibus editor Chris Warner, “and today’s effects can really carry that off. The themes and characters have a lot of depth and resonance, and ultimately that’s what storytelling is about. Good stories are always good stories.”

I fell in love with Alien Legion, so much so that in my RPG Publishing days, I actually approached Carl Potts about releasing a game based on the franchise. Potts answer to me was “I turned down Wizards of the Coast, why would I let you publish it?”

This was back when Mainframe Entertainment (creators of Reboot and Beast Wars) was also working on a treatment for an animated TV series based on the property.

As harsh of an answer as that was, the reality is that like other comic creators he just didn’t trust his property to the hands of someone else regardless of how qualified they might be. I certainly was no WotC, but even they didn’t rank for him.

So to hear that this is moving forward is at best a tiny step in the right direction. They have writers on board, however Potts has them working on their third script. I wonder why Potts himself isn’t writing this as I enjoyed every single frame of the adventures of Nomad Squadron. Potts suggests that this may be something that director Jerry Bruckheimer would be interested in due to his convincing CGI/live action experience that would be needed to bring Alien Legion to life.

My hopes are sky high that we may one day see Alien Legion in a live action form. But I just don’t know when.