The cinematic Marvel-DC “arms race” is a bit of an illusion, since Marvel has leased their properties to many other studios, and DC’s characters all exist underneath the Warner Bros. banner. Still, WB is smart enough to know that superheroes sell right now, and with the departure of “Harry Potter,” the end of the Chris Nolan Batman films, and a final “The Hangover” hitting next summer, they’re clearly hard-up for franchises right now. Which is why DC and the WB are partnering to bring “The Flash” “Wonder Woman” “Lobo” to the big screen, with the help of the visionary auteur behind “Cats And Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.”
“Lobo,” a fringe character at DC, is an intergalactic bounty hunter who looks very much like a beefy biker with a love of old Kiss 45’s. Created by Roger Slifer and Keith Giffen in the eighties, he was a parody of other extreme characters like the Punisher and Wolverine, but became immensely popular in the nineties for representing exactly what he was meant to mock. Despite having a stable of characters with global name recognition, DC will move ahead with an adaptation of this one-note character in a film idea that has “Interstellar Jonah Hex” written all over it.
Guy Ritchie was originally developing this project a couple of years back, though he bailed to make the second of two back-to-back $500 million-grossing “Sherlock Holmes” films. Peyton now looks like the WB’s golden child after having made the studio $320 million worldwide with “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.” Peyton has already been tasked with returning to that franchise, though he’s got much bigger collaborators attached to “Lobo” in superproducers Joel Silver and King Midas-in-reverse Akiva Goldsman. Quick, tell the biggest Lobo fan you know this news is happening. We’ll wait. [Deadline]