Chronicle's Josh Trank To Direct 'The Red Star'

Attached to helm the Warner Bros adaptation of the sci-fi series about an alternative reality Soviet Russia where an epic war between militarized sorcery and monolithic technology wages.

By Matt Holmes /

27-year old director Josh Trank, who is now firmly on the map having delivered the $12 million budgeted found footage super-powered Chronicle in theaters last month to over a $100 million profit, seems to be making his way down the comic book film adaptation food chain. He was first courted by 20th Century Fox for a Fantastic Four reboot last month and although he didn€™t seem too interested in answering Fox€™s calls, two weeks ago he did enter talks with Sony Pictures over a controversial attempt to spin-off The Amazing Spider-Man with a film centred on the villain Venom. Whilst we haven't heard any more word on that project in the past fortnight, Trank has now firmly attached himself to a much lesser profiled comic book adaptation that we are told he is developing to direct. Deadline reports that Trank will helm The Red Star, an adaptation of the alternative reality sci-fi comic book series that has a cult following. Created in 1999 by Christian Gossett at Image Comics, the award-winning graphic novel is set in a fictional Soviet Russia where an epic war between militarized sorcery and monolithic technology wages. In the middle of this, there are ghosts of old soldiers who continue to fight alongside the living. Our lead character is "a Red Fleet soldier who goes up against an ex-leader who rules with an iron fist." Since it made its debut in the late 90's, Gossett formed Archangel Studios in 2002 and has self-published more issues. Jason Rothenberg, who once wrote an adaptation of The Twilight Zone, has wrote the script. Neal Moritz is attached to produce at his Original Film shingle. He setup the film at Warner Bros last summer when Universal let the project go when their attached helmer Timur Bekmambetov (the Russian helmer behind Hollywood hit Wanted) ventured onto other scripts.