Mike Fleming

phpThumb.phpComic-Con serves as a trigger for the announcement of movie deals based on graphic novels, and DreamWorks has gotten on the board early. The studio has acquired the Radical Studios comic Earp: Saints for Sinners, with fanboy favorite Sam Raimi attached to direct, and Matt Cirulnick writing the script. Mandeville partners David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman will produce along with Radical’s Barry Levine, Raimi and his partner Josh Donen. Mandeville’s David Manpearl (who hatched the idea for the comic with Cirulnick) will be an exec producer. 13018611The comic is a re-imagining of Western hero Wyatt Earp fighting outlaws in a ravaged society where the only boom town left is the sin city of Las Vegas. The comic was written by M. Zachary Sherman and Cirulnick and illustrated by Mack Chater and Martin Montiel. Levine, formerly a famous photographer of rock stars, has been at this comic-to-movie game for a few years, and has some promising books on the drawing board as movies. They include an adaptation of Last Days of American Crime with Sam Worthington, and Oblivion, which has Tron Legacy director Joe Kosinski attached. The project will be unveiled at Radical’s San Diego Comic-Con panel this Thursday, but who wants to wait?

Raimi, who last focused on gunslingers in 1995′s The Quick and the Dead--with Sharon Stone, Leo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe and Gene Hackman–has plenty on his plate after scrapping what would have been his fourth Spider-Man film. The top contenders for his next slot are Warcraft for Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros, and The Great and Powerful Oz at Disney.