Good news for ARCHER & ARMSTRONG fans: Valiant and the Sean Daniel Company are prepping a feature adaptation of the 22-year-old comic, and they already have a draft on hand written by BenDavid Grabinski.
The comic, created by Barry Windsor-Smith, Jim Shooter, and Bob Layton, revolves around Obadiah Archer, a young Kansas boy raised by a pair of sex predators/evangelist preachers. He escapes their grasp and ends up in a Bhuddist temple, which kicks him out because of his rage toward his psycho parents. He makes his way westward, he meets Armstrong, a homeless immortal who he believes to be the bringer of the apocalypse. Eventually, Archer & Armstrong team up against the real bad guys, with Archer using his (aptly enough) archery skills and Armstrong with his bottomless, impervious satchel (and, you know, not dying and stuff).
Grabinski has yet to be tested on this level, with his biggest credit so far being on Machinima's ENORMOUS, but he's a talented dude and it's awesome that his draft is getting traction. This sounds like one of the more intriguing "alternative", non-Marvel or DC comic book adaptations in development right now, and I can't help but think that Marvel's interest in properties like GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and DOCTOR STRANGE (along with the attempts to get PREACHER and SANDMAN off the grouns) have left the door open for weird-sounding projects like this to get some real momentum going. Hopefully, Daniels & Co. will find a director and two actors who will do the material justice, and won't dick around with the loftier elements of the premise.
COST OF LIVING from BenDavid Grabinski on Vimeo.
-Vincent Kim-Zahedi
”Papa Vinyard”
vincentzahedi@gmail.com
Twitter
