Man-Thing: Forget About Ted Sallis
"This, quite possibly, could be the scariest Marvel movie ever. It's their first real foray into straight up horror."
Creature-Corner.com recently turned in an excellent report regarding Artisan/Marvel's upcoming film MAN-THING. Here's what they had to say:
Batman this. Blade III that. Catwoman, Spider-Man 2, yeah, yeah...
I know there's a few of you out there who want to know more about Brett Leonard's big screen interpretation of Man-Thing.
An adaptation of the Marvel comic, Man-Thing has recently begun lensing exteriors in Sydney, Australia with Leonard (Hideaway) at the helm and starring Mark Stevens as the titular swamp thing, Rachel Taylor, Steve Bastoni, Robert Mammone, and Imogen Bailey.
Before we decided to tread any further with progress reports on Man-Thing, Creature-Corner dropped a line to Thing scribe Hans Rodionoff (Tortured Souls, Saint Sinner ) to find out just how "horrifying" it's intentions are. Outside of the obvious monster elements and the fact that "those who know fear BURN at Man-Thing's touch!" we wanted some sort of assurance that we're not venturing into Hulk territory here.
Skeptical of revealing any juicy plot details, Hans informed us that the film is not on the fastlane to direct-to-video hell as previously rumored nor is it your standard "hero" film as witnessed in Marvel's recent successes like Blade, Daredevil, and X-Men.
"This movie is nothing like 'Swamp Thing.' This, quite possibly, could be the scariest Marvel movie ever. It's their first real foray into straight up horror. 'Blade' is kind of a horror/action hybrid. This one is just out for the scares," explains Rodionoff. "It's a horror movie. 'Swamp Thing' was a comic book movie about a swamp creature protagonist. The Man-Thing is not the protagonist in this movie."
Budgeted at over $5 million (the Corner's heard a flat $7 mil from other sources, but that's not confirmed), the plot of Man-Thing has departed in some respects from the source material. "Everyone should try to forget about Ted Sallis and the Super Soldier Serum," stresses Hans. "Go in expecting something new."