North Wind #4

DAVIS ENTERTAINMENT HAS ACQUIRED THE RIGHTS TO BOOM! STUDIOS' COMIC BOOK SERIES 'NORTH WIND'

Davis Entertainment has acquired the rights to BOOM! Studios' comic book series North Wind, it was announced today by John Davis and BOOM! Studios' co-founders, Andrew Cosby and Ross Richie.  Davis, along with Cosby and Richie via the Boom Entertainment banner, will produce the feature.

The North Wind comic book series is a post-Apocalyptic action story in the vein of Mad Max. Series creator David DiGilio (Eight Below and the ABC series "Traveler") will adapt his own comic book into screenplay form and also serve as executive producer.  The storyline is set in the future, where global warming creates a new ice age.   The last remnants of society live ruled by a despot in downtown Los Angeles under the ice, while a scattered few survivors are exiled to the inhospitable surface.  One of these survivors rises up to lead a revolt to overthrow their oppressor.

BOOM! Studios co-founders Cosby and Richie have been experiencing a "boom" in Hollywood lately. The pair is producing adaptations of their Tag and Talent comics at Universal with Marc Platt, while The Foundation was snapped up by Paramount Pictures in a pre-emptive bid. Ice Cube's CubeVision is adapting the BOOM! Studios graphic novel "10" for Dimension Films.

The film will be one of many sci-fi spectacles for Davis Entertainment, which helped bring I, Robot, Alien Vs. Predator and Eragon to the screen.

DiGilio is repped by UTA and manager Stephen Crawford. Cosby and Richie are repped by Paradigm and managers Peter Adam Golden and Farley Ziegler of Golden Entertainment West.

The North Wind comic series has been launched as part of a historic simultaneous release this year arriving in stores and available as free digital downloads at MySpace Comic Books.

Copies of the comic book can be found here:

http://www.boom-studios.com/product/comicbooks?filter0=116&filter1=**ALL**&filter2=**ALL**

North Wind creator David DiGilio talked earlier this week with Matthew McLean of Comicsbulletin.com about North Wind, the comic and the impending movie:

Matthew McLean: North Wind, which has been doing well in sales, seems to have caught the attention of Hollywood as well as regular comic book readers.  How'd that happen?  Are you excited, worried, or both?

David DiGilio: I'm definitely excited to see North Wind catch the interest of comic book fans and Hollywood.  We're in the middle of a renaissance for comic book adaptations in the movie business.  Hollywood has been choosing to produce these movies in the most grounded, complex, and visually stunning way possible.  Most of my favorite studio films of the past few years have come out of that process: Spider-Man 2, X-Men 2, before that, Men in Black, just to name a few.  Hopefully, North Wind will be another "high-class" comic book adaptation.

MM: You live in LA, worked in television and movies - so why did you take North Wind to comic books?  Why BOOM! ?

DD: I've been living in LA for about nine years, and I always knew that I wanted to generate stories for the big and small screens.  But long before then, I was a glasses-wearing kid in Alexandria, Virginia who made weekly treks to the comic book store.  When I realized that North Wind was too big a story concept to convey without some type of visual aid, I got the idea to make it a comic.  I had met Ross and Andy about another potential writing assignment, and I'd been really impressed with their books Tag and Talent.  So we met for lunch and started talking about doing something, and North Wind was picked before they'd brought out dessert.

MM: While North Wind is a post-Apocalyptic tale, it's also a generational one.  What do you think really separates it from other superficially similar stories?

DD: Whenever you take on a post-Apocalyptic story, everyone immediately compares you to the Mad Max trilogy and then throws you under the bus for trying to equal a classic.  The genre is littered with movies about men turning on each other in the middle of desolate, desert landscapes.  But we're not trying to re-create Road Warrior.   We're telling a fantastical adventure about man's survival when the planet turns against us, not when we turn against each other.   In North Wind, Mother Nature dominates men's fears and philosophies.  And the frozen landscape is really it's own character.  This is a post-apocalyptic story where the biggest antagonist in the story is the world that waits when you step outside your front door.  That's what makes North Wind unique, and so timely."

MM: How do you think posting the issues of North Wind on MySpace for free has affected the exposure and/or sales of the book?  Do you think it affected the movie deal at all?

DD: I've been asked a few times about the MySpace/North Wind simultaneous launch.  I know it upset some retailers and traditional comic book fans.  But we live in a world of massively increased competition.  It's hard for independent labels to get the word out about their books.  And I think the MySpace launch did an amazing job of increasing awareness about North Wind.  That was certainly reflected in the books' sales.  I'm not sure if the MySpace launch affected our movie deal, but I do know that anytime people hear that a potential film project has 200,000 friends that know about it (the rough number of friends on MySpace Comic Books), that can only help.

MM: You're listed as being the executive producer for the upcoming film.  What does that mean?  What role will you play in the movie's development?

DD: I have long been hoping to segue into the role of writer/producer in Hollywood.  When you work in TV, you wear both hats, writing the script and overseeing how it's translated to the screen.  But in film, a screenwriter is usually confined to writing duties alone.  What does the executive producer credit mean on North Wind?  It means that I'm taking a baby step in the direction of my goal, and that I will get to learn the producing craft by watching one of Hollywood's biggest producers, John Davis, do his job.  I'm very excited for that opportunity.

The acquisition of the North Wind joins a long list successes that the three-year old BOOM! Studios has continued to have this past year. BOOM! Studios recently tripled in size, most notably with the addition of fan-favorite comics veteran Mark Waid appointed to the role of Editor-in-Chief.

Through BOOM!'s mass-market book distribution deal via Perseus, one of the market leaders in book retailing, BOOM!'s line of over twenty trade paperback graphic-novel collections--including Talent, Hero Squared, TAG, Death Valley, X Isle, Zombie Tales and many, many others--has hit store shelves to wide acclaim.

Early last year saw the launch of BOOM!'s successful series of Games Workshop licensed series of WARHAMMER 40,000, WARHAMMER Fantasy, and BLOOD BOWL comic books and trade paperback graphic novels, including the successful WARHAMMER 40,000: DAMNATION CRUSADE, WARHAMMER: FORGE OF WAR, WARHAMMER 40,000: BLOOD AND THUNDER and the forthcoming WARHAMMER: CONDEMNED BY FIRE, WARHAMMER 40,000: EXTERMINATUS and BLOOD BOWL:KILLER CONTRACT.