Alex Proyas to direct graphic novel Joe Golem and the Drowning City
Alex Proyas is set to direct the feature film version of a graphic novel with filming to take place in Australia.
Created by Hell Boy’s Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden, Proyas will adapt the story to bring Joe Golem and the Drowning City to the big screen.
Since Proya’s adaptation of epic poem Paradise Lost fell over, the Australian film-maker also picked up the adaptation rights to Robert A Heinlein’s sci-fi novella The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag in April and a project called Gods of Egypt with Summit Entertainment in May.
He is also set to direct a vignette within John Polson and Gary Hamilton’s Sydney Unplugged.
The news comes out of Comic Con. According to Deadline.com, the film was acquired by Constantin Film and The Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Eric Robinson with Proyas’ Mystery Clock will produce, alongside Peter Donaldson. Mignola and Golden will executive produce.
Joe Golem and the Drowning City is a supernatural steampunk story that takes place 50 years after a 1925 earthquake has sunken lower Manhatten into 30 foot of water, known as the Drowning City. After an old magician is taken hostage by spirits after a seance, an orphaned teenage girl who befriend him must enlist an occult detective and his sidekick Joe, whose past is a mystery to himself.
