Dark Horse Entertainment, David Ellison's Skydance Productions and The Mark Gordon Company are teaming to bring Cole Haddon's upcoming graphic novel "The Strange Case of Hyde" to the big screen.
Dark Horse's Mike Richardson and Keith Goldberg will produce with Gordon, while Ellison will also produce for Skydance, which is financing development.
Haddon will adapt the graphic novel himself, having previously written "Thieves of Baghdad" for Warner Bros.
The classic Jekyll and Hyde characters debuted in an 1886 novella by Robert Louis Stevenson, and "Strange Case" aims to bring a fresh angle to the story by making the split personality the focus of a Victorian-era action-adventure movie that will see the anti-hero face off against one of history's most notorious villains.
I've always enjoyed movies that feature a character struggling to suppress a darker side of themselves, so hopefully Haddon has found an exciting way to reinvent the legendary literary villain, who has been absent from the big screen for far too long.
Dark Horse will publish the graphic novel in 2011 after unveiling the property later this week at Comic-Con. The company is represented by WME and Gotham Group.
Skydance recently entered a four-year co-production/co-financing deal with Paramount Pictures. They have the Coen brothers' "True Grit" in post-production and Brad Bird's "Mission: Impossible 4" in pre-production. Skydance will also produce a feature film based on a pitch from David Caspe that will star Oscar winner Charlize Theron.
Haddon is represented by ICM and Anonymous Content.
