EXCLUSIVE: Sony has hired duo Justin Tipping and Joshua Beirne-Golden to do a rewrite of their superhero film Harbinger. The project is being produced by Fast and Furious franchise producer Neal Moritz (Original Films). Harbinger is the first of five films that Sony has from a deal with comic book publisher Valiant Entertainment superheroes and Beverly Hills/Beijing-based DMG. The other film in the Valiant mix is Bloodshot.
Harbinger, which will also be produced by Original Film’s Toby Jaffe and Valiant Dinesh Shamdasani, was always planned as the first film. Each of the films will have a sequel before the title characters meet in Harbinger Wars, inspired by Valiant’s 2013 comic book crossover.
Harbinger was created by former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter and artist David Lapham in 1992. The story centers on Peter Stanchek, a psionically-charged “harbinger” with the potential to reshape the course of human history. Respected philanthropist and fellow harbinger Toyo Harada recruits him into the Harbinger Foundation where he begins a long road towards a destiny that will shake the very foundations of the Valiant Universe.
Over the weekend, Moritz’s next installment of the Fast and Furious franchise – The Fate of the Furious – set a global record as the biggest opening of all time with $532M worldwide. Almost $100M of that ($98.8M) came from North America. The opening of F8 beat the previous biggest international weekend, Jurassic World‘s $316.7M, by a big margin and the success of the film pushed the studio over the $1B threshold internationally on opening day.
Writing partners Tipping and Beirne-Golden previously collaborated on the hip-hop street drama Kicks. They are both repped by UTA and Anonymous Content.
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