Taika Waititi to make a movie of iconic comic The Incal by Jodorowsky and Moebius
The Thor director will write a new take on the influential sci-fi comic with What We Do in the Shadows collaborator Jemaine Clement.
Thor director Taika Waititi is set to bring one of the most legendary graphic novels in the history of comics, The Incal, to the big screen.
Waititi will direct and co-write the sci-fi graphic series created by Alejandro Jodorowsky and enormously influential French artist Jean Giraud, also known as Moebius. The sprawling series began in the comic Heavy Metal in 1980 and has spawned various spinoffs in the same deeply weird cosmic universe.
The screenplay will be written by Peter Warren with Waititi and his frequent collaborator Jemaine Clement, who together co-created the movie and TV series What We Do in the Shadows.
It isn't clear if the movie will be live action or animated (like the odbball Heavy Metal movie released in 1981).
There's an irony to Jodorowsky's comic work being adapted in such a high-profile way after his own films often struggled to raise funding or find an audience. His hypnotic and bizarre cult films include The Holy Mountain and El Topo, but he's perhaps best known for a failed attempt to make a movie of Dune in the 1970s (recounted in the excellent documentary Jodorowsky's Dune), before David Lynch and now Denis Villeneuve managed to bring it to the screen.
The 92-year-old Jodorowsky has given Waititi his blessing, having seen some of the New Zealand director's earlier work. "It became obvious to me that he was the one," said Jodorowsky in a statement released by graphic novel publisher Humanoids.
Now on https://t.co/C7IiEYCV4G 🔥#theincalmovie #TheIncal #Moebius #jodorowsky pic.twitter.com/C9pxNmLgmf
— Humanoids (@humanoidsinc) November 4, 2021
Waititi has directed Thor: Ragnarok, Jojo Rabbit and The Mandalorian. His next Marvel movie, Thor: Love And Thunder, comes out July 8, 2022. Clearly a fan of classic sci-fi, Waititi has also been slated to write and direct a new take on Flash Gordon, a live action version of manga epic Akira, and a live-action Star Wars movie.
