Johnny Depp is in the midst of bring one of television’s most famous vampires to the big screen in the currently in-production Dark Shadows with director Tim Burton, but another role that may be in his future is that of one of television’s most famous vampire hunters. No, not Buffy, but intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak, The Night Stalker!
Disney is looking to bring the cult 1974 television series to the big screen and have tapped Scott Pilgrim director Edgar Wright to oversee its development. Depp has already been signed on as a producer for the project and will very likely to star in it as well.No writer has been hired for the project, though with Wright’s frequent habit of serving as a co-writer on his films, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him do similar duty here.
The character of Carl Kolchak came to television in a made-for-TV film adaption of Richard Matheson’s novel The Night Stalker with Darren McGavin as the tabloid journalist unable to convince his editor that a vampire is behind a string of serial murders in Las Vegas. High ratings lead to a sequel TV-movie, The Night Strangler and then the short-lived weekly series. The less about the even shorter-lived TV revival the better.
isney certainly likes to be in the Johnny Depp business. The four Pirates Of The Caribbean films have earned the studio a cool couple of billion dollars at this point, and they have high hopes for next year’s The Lone Ranger. I would expect that if Lone Ranger does well, the studio will put The Night Stalker on the fast track. In the meantime, Wright still waits to see if Disney and Marvel Studios will grant a greenlight to Ant-Man, which he is attached to direct and which he co-wrote with Attack The Block‘s Joe Cornish.
Via Deadline.
Didn’t Jeff Rice write the novel?