Last month, Paramount Pictures bought the rights to Keith Champagne and Peter Tomasi’s graphic novel The Mighty. They’re now moving forward fast, by hiring Iron Man 3 screenwriter Drew Pearce to script the superhero tale, according to Variety. Pearce may now be the toast of Hollywood, but the Brit cut his teeth in UK TV with the likes of Lip Service and No Heroics. The latter got him noticed in the US, when it was picked up by ABC for an American remake (although it failed to get past the pilot stage).
The Mighty is about is about Alpha-One, the world’s most powerful super-being, who has always been a force for good, backed by an entire police force who are there to help him. However Gabriel Cole, a cop who’s life was saved by Alpha One as a child during a terrible accident, gets a case that leads him to uncover his hero’s dark plan, which will put them on a collision course of an ordinary man versus a super-man.
While most DC Comics titles land at Warner Bros (as they’re both part of the same company), Champagne and Tomasi control the rights to their series and opted for Paramount. An ordinary man tasked with bringing down a super-being may not be a wholly original concept, but it’s a decent one, and could make for an interesting, and perhaps rather gritty superhero flick.
It’s still early days and there’s no director as yet, so it isn’t certain when The Mighty might hit cinema screens.