The Best Graphic Novel From Walking Dead Team Getting Sci-Fi Series
Skybound Entertainment, the company behind The Walking Dead, is developing a new sci-fi series based on its own comic book property, Heart Attack. According to Deadline, Skybound is working with the Japanese network Fuji TV to adapt Heart Attack for the screen. Skybound will distribute the new series globally, while Fuji TV plans to broadcast Heart Attack locally in Japan.
Skybound Entertainment’s comic book series Heart Attack is being adapted for television by Japan’s Fuji TV.
Heart Attack takes place in a world where advanced gene therapy has eliminated all diseases in America. An unexpected side effect is that now, people known as Variants are being born with unique abilities. Abilities that the Government covets for its own use.
Stemming from the mind of Shawn Kittelsen, the writer behind Mortal Kombat 11 and the DC-themed fighting game Injustice 2, Heart Attack tells the story of the Variants’ rebellion against a government that has enslaved them and denied them their basic human rights.
The Japanese TV adaptation will follow the love story between two of Heart Attack‘s main characters, Charlie North and Jill Kearney, as they unlock powers neither of them knew they had and use them to combat the corrupt government.
Rick Jacobs, Managing Partner of Linear Content at Skybound, announced that the company was “delighted to have Fuji TV as a partner” and that their adaptation of Heart Attack will be a “compelling sci-fi TV series.” Jacobs went on to praise Heart Attack‘s writer Shawn Kittelsen as well as artist Eric Zawadzki for creating “an emotionally and visually stimulating world that demands to be brought to life.”
As Murray explains it, Skybound likes to think of IPs as “circular” and tends to build everything “around the creator” in order to have the “creator’s voice” connected directly to every aspect of a property.
Skybound is unique for an entertainment company in that they’ve eschewed the traditional vertical format of most media companies in favor of something they call the “Wheel of Awesome.”
Stemming from the mind of Shawn Kittelsen, the writer behind Mortal Kombat 11 and the DC-themed fighting game Injustice 2, Heart Attack tells the story of the Variants’ rebellion against a government that has enslaved them and denied them their basic human rights.
According to the president of Skybound Interactive, Dan Murray, the Wheel of Awesome treats various departments as spokes radiating out from the creators rather than putting, say, a comic book creative team on the bottom and the television adaptation above them with a film adaptation above that.
As Murray explains it, Skybound likes to think of IPs as “circular” and tends to build everything “around the creator” in order to have the “creator’s voice” connected directly to every aspect of a property. This means that the television version of Heart Attack will still be heavily influenced by Kittelsen and Zawadzki.
This method of production is a far cry from the way Hollywood usually operates, where once the rights to an IP are purchased, the creator has no say in the way their characters look or are portrayed.
Heart Attack’s post-disease world is an interesting concept following the recent COVID-19 epidemic that gripped the entire globe starting in 2020 and still continues to this day, albeit in a much less severe form. Given how close the subject matter is to current events, Skybound and FujiTV can expect the upcoming sci-fi series to generate a decent-sized following.
So far, nothing beyond the initial deal has been released. Fans of the Heart Attack comic will have to wait to find out what actors will be portraying their favorite characters in live-action and when. Further updates, including casting announcements and Heart Attack‘s premiere date, are expected to be unveiled in the coming months.
