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Universal Exploring Viper Comics' World of Villains

by Alex Billington
October 29, 2008

Continuing the darker, villainous trend that we discussed during Sony's Venom spin-off announcement, Universal has picked up the rights to an adaptation of Viper Comics graphic novel Villains. The comic, told from the perspective of the villains, follows a young man who is failing at life and finds purpose when he meets a retired notorious supervillain known as "Hardliner" who takes him under his wing. Newcomers Matt Jennison and Brent Strickland (who have also been tapped by Joel Silver to write the upcoming Wonder Woman script) were hired by producer Sean Bailey to write this adaptation of Villains.

I've been waiting to see when Hollywood would officially make the jump to villains, and this might finally be the big break we've been waiting for. The comic sounds like it potentially has the kind of story needed to finally integrate villains as the lead character into mainstream cinema, although I haven't ever read the comics myself. I'm intrigued most by the idea and by seeing whether moviegoers will embrace a story that doesn't focus on a hero, but instead, a "super-criminal." This could be the start of something very fresh in Hollywood that we haven't really seen before, but only time will tell if it turns out as good as on paper.

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