“Piranha 3D” hits theaters tomorrow, and while it’s not being screened for critics in the States, the film’s Oscar campaign is already firmly underway. The film’s director Alexandre Aja, who was also behind the hardcore horror flicks “Switchblade Romance” and “The Hills Have Eyes” is wasting no time in setting up his next film, however, and has a pair of projects that seem to be percolating, both of which would see him head out of the horror genre for the first time.
First up is the noir ‘Blacksad,’ based on a Spanish graphic novel that’s recently been published in the States by Dark Horse. The series is a fairly traditional noir, except for the fact that the cast is made up of anthropomorphized animals, including the main character, John Blacksad, a black cat and private investigator, and Weekly, his sidekick, a weasel.
Aja revealed the project while talking to Ain’t It Cool News, and there’s no word of whether the project is set up anywhere, or how Aja intends to film it — we suppose either heavy prosthetics or animation are possible, although both sound very expensive. Either way, this one sounds like it’ll be a few years off, as Aja seems to have something more pressing on the way.
Deadline have confirmed (although the news was first reported by fan site Cobraworld, via Twitch Film, back in July) that Aja will direct a co-write an adaptation of the cult Japanese manga-turned-animated-series “Cobra: The Space Pirate” (some of you may remember the cartoon from Matthew Sweet’s “Girlfriend” video in the mid ’90s; see below). The series, which ran in the early 1980s, focuses on the titular rogue with a new face and a gun in his arm who teams up with a female bounty hunter to find lost treasure on Mars, and was hugely popular in Europe in the 1980s, where Aja originally fell for it, claiming it held a similar impact to Star Wars.
The film’s envisioned as an epic space opera franchise, probably in 3D, and the rights have now been secured by Aja and his co-producers, who include Alexandra Milchan (“Street Kings”), and they’re now talking to financiers. To be honest it seems like a big gamble: Aja’s quite talented, but has never taken on anything of this scale, and even with the success of “Avatar,” we’d be surprised if many studios took on a relatively unknown property like this. If it happens, it’ll probably be done Luc Besson-style, on a relatively low budget, with European financing. More news as the story develops and, in the meantime, you can check out Aja’s 3D chops this weekend