Blumhouse is continuing to greenlight exciting new stories with a social conscience. This week, it was announced they would be adapting the comic book series ‘The American Way: Those Above and Below’ by ’12 years a Slave’ writer and ‘American Crime’ creator John Ridley. Deadline.com broke the news and gave a little bit of background on the Vertigo graphic novel. Ridley will be handling both writing and directing duties for the film and Jason Blum will serve as producer. The story would appear to be to the comic book movie what ‘Get Out’ was to the horror genre. Hopefully everyone involved can find the same magic and we can finally see a superhero film crash the Oscars. Check out the brief synopsis for the graphic novel from Deadline to get an idea of what to expect.
Ten years after the CDC [The Civil Defense Corps] was torn apart by racism, infighting and murder and exposed as a propaganda sham, the surviving members are heading in different directions… Though the film will be set in 1972, there are plenty of issues that ring relevant today and that give this a chance to be more than your typical spandex saga.
The description of the plots for both ‘The American Way’ stories suggest a very Watchman-ish story, but with a focus on the racial & social dynamics of the 1960’s and the 1970’s. John Ridley is an outstanding writer and the idea of a kind of revisionist super hero film is something that’s always incredibly appealing. Hopefully Jason Blum and his production company continue to have the magic touch.
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