It is time for Oscar-winner Colin Firth to be undead or alive as he has signed on to be part of STXfilms and Tencent Pictures action-comedy New York Will Eat You Alive (tentative title) based on the digital comic Zombie Brother. The director of Isn’t Romantic, Todd Strauss-Schulson, is attached to direct the adaptation and will be co-produced by Tencent and STXfilms, Channing Tatum and Reid Carolin. Free Association’s Peter Kiernan and Ged Doherty of Above The Line Productions will also produce.
The script was written by Alex Rubens (Key and Peele) with new revisions from Dan Gregor (How I Met Your Mother) and Doug Mand (How I Met Your Mother). The comic Zombie Brother was created by Jia Haibo and is one of the most favored comics on Tencent’s digital comics and animation platform. The comic book is shown to have over 28 billion views and while the animated series has accumulated more than 3.7 billion views throughout the first two seasons. The series has also been adapted to a stage play.
The announcement of Firth’s casting was made today by Adam Fogelson, Chairman of the STXfilms Motion Picture Group, and by Edward Cheng, CEO of China Literature and Tencent.
“We always wanted to cast this in a way that would give life to the source material and elevate the action, and you can’t achieve that goal any better than hiring Colin Firth,” said Fogelson. “From The King’s Speech to Kingsman, Colin always gives an Oscar-caliber performance. We’re thrilled to be reuniting with him on New York Will Eat You Alive in a role that will allow him to have fun while showcasing his deadpan humor and comic timing.”
Firth won an Oscar, Golden Globe, and BAFTA for his performance in the film The King’s Speech in 2010. He recently starred in STXfilms adaptation of The Secret Garden, a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett first published in 1911.
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