Yesterday, blockbuster filmmaker James Cameron announced on his official Facebook page that he has secured the film rights, via Lightstorm Entertainment, to the dark fantasy novel “The Devils,” which he is developing into a feature project and will write once he completes “Avatar: Fire & Ash.”
A fantastical action story that focuses on a group of special forces monsters assembled to help save Europe from the threat of flesh-eating elves. The original novel hails from famed genre writer Joe Abercrombie, who will be co-writing the film’s script alongside Cameron.
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“I’m certain this adaptation will practically write itself because Joe writes very visually, almost in scenes, and with a very cinematic structure. I can’t wait to dig into this as I wind down on Avatar: Fire and Ash. It will be a joyful new challenge for me to bring these indelible characters to life,” Cameron said in an official statement.
He also added, “How do I describe ‘The Devils’? A sharply witty horror adventure? An epic battle between good and evil, except most of the time you can’t tell which is which? A twisted, stylish, alt-universe middle-ages romp, where your best hope of survival is the monsters themselves? This is Joe Abercrombie in absolute peak form, opening up a whole new world and an ensemble of delicious new characters. The twists and turns come at a rollercoaster pace, and with Joe’s signature acerbic wit and style.”
Here is the original book’s synopsis via Amazon:
Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds. Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters. The mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends. Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it’s a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.
You’d likely have to be a big genre book fan to recognize the author’s name, however, he isn’t a stranger to the world of film and television having seen a bunch of his work adapted by Tim Miller and David Fincher‘s Netflix series “Love Death + Robots” (they once wanted to use his material for a “Heavy Metal” revival, too). Miller is also trying to get a feature version of his fantasy book “Best Served Cold” to the big screen with Rebecca Ferguson (“Dune”) in the lead role.
It certainly sounds like “The Devils” will be taking a page from Mike Mignola‘s “Hellboy” and “B.P.R.D.” comic books, but with more of a fantasy angle to it.
This isn’t the only other project Cameron is working on, as he’s attempting to tackle the WWII survival drama ‘Ghosts Of Hiroshima,’ which focuses on the dropping of the atomic bombs and is told from the Japanese perspective of those events. How these two projects impact Cameron completing “Avatar 4” or starting “Avatar 5” remains to be seen. The director has been hinting for a while that he might hand off some of the directing duties on the sequels to others.
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