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Mark Hamill Directing an Adaptation of His 'Black Pearl' Comic

by Ethan Anderton
May 17, 2010

Though he will always be known as Luke Skywalker, actor Mark Hamill has made a decent living outside of Star Wars by lending his voice to an insane amount of animated programming including a recurring role as The Joker in "Batman: The Animated Series" and several DC Comics' series and feature length spin-offs. However, aside from his acting, he also wrote his own comic book, The Black Pearl, which we heard last month might become a film adaptation to be directed by Hamill himself. At the time, we were to wait until Cannes for an official announcement, so now with the festival in full swing, confirmation has hit in Variety.

It's now confirmed that Hamill will indeed be directing this adaptation of his five issue comic series which focuses on a troubled man named Luther Drake who becomes a costumed vigilante "hero" by accident and media pressure. Hamill has said the comic is "a crime thriller, fairly raw in terms of violence, about tabloid journalism and sensationalism and all the things that thriller come from." This won't be Hamill's first rodeo as director since he also helmed the mockumentary Comic Book: The Movie, but this will definitely be on a bit of a larger scale with more fantastical elements, so it'll be interesting to see how he handles a feature.

About 14 years ago, the story was intended to hit the big screen, but a lot like 30 Days of Night (which was an unsuccessful film pitch before it was a comic book), it just needed to be established in some other form of media for Hollywood to get on board. But when you have a couple currently hot writers like Pal Tamasy and Eric Johnson (who recently collaborated with David O. Russell on The Fighter), you're going to get a decent amount of attention for a project. Though producers were throwing upwards of $30 million for a chance to snag the project, Hamill turned them down because a bigger budget meant that he wouldn't get to direct. So with a $7 million budget, Hamill will sit in the director's chair, and we'll be waiting to see how it turns out.

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