Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris‘ superhero-turned-politician comic Ex Machina is headed to the big screen. Seberg and The Aftermath writers Anna Waterhouse and Joe Shrapnel will pen the adaptation, with Vaughan on board to produce the film at Legendary Entertainment. Vaughan, who also created Y: The Last Man and Saga, has an ongoing overall film and TV deal with the studio.
New Line Cinema had an Ex Machina adaptation in the works back in 2005, but in 2012, Harris confirmed the rights reverted back to the creators.
The comic series kicked off in 2004, and in a unique twist, mixed the superhero genre with politics, focusing the story of Mitchel Hundred, a former superhero elected mayor of New York City after his heroic actions during 9/11. Ex Machina ran for 50 issues and took home the Eisner Award for Best New Comic in 2005.
The film adaptation will revolve around Hundred dealing with a threatened political career when the source of his powers returns to claim its debt. In the comics, Hundred can communicate with a power called mechanical, which initially makes him the world’s first bonafide superhero and allows him to stop the second plane on 9/11.
The film will be titled The Great Machine to avoid confusion with Alex Garland‘s 2015 sci-fi film, Ex Machina. No matter what it’s called, this has exciting potential. The mixing of the superhero genre with politics is a very interesting one that could go in many directions.
Hopefully the studio brings a director on board with similarly direct and fascinating ideas. The worst thing to happen to The Great Machine would be to water it down and make the political aspect – the most interesting feature of the story – secondary to the superhero part.
If we’re sitting here in two years and the film has become just another superhero movie following the Marvel formula, this adaptation will have thoroughly failed.
It’s all going well for Vaughan right now. A Y: The Last Man TV adaptation is in the works at FX, while another TV adaptation of his work, Paper Girls, is underway at Amazon.
#Peace.Love.ExMachina
