Adam Wingard continues to pile up potential projects.

The Godzilla vs. Kong filmmaker has just been hired to direct Hardcore, a movie adaptation of a comic created by The Walking Dead‘s Robert Kirkman and Marc Silvestri (Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine). If you’ve never read the comic, just think about the premise of Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor, and it’s basically the same thing. Get the details below.

The Hollywood Reporter says Adam Wingard has been hired to be Universal’s Hardcore director, and he’ll executive produce the film as well. Kirkman reportedly wrote an outline for the film version, and Wingard will co-write the script with a new writer named Will Simmon, who does not yet have any produced credits. THR describes Hardcore as “a sci-fi thriller following a soldier’s journey as he saves the world without getting his hands dirty,” but that vague description sells the idea a little short.

In 2009, Kirkman and Silvestri cooked up the concept for the comic, in which the technology exists for government agents to possess anyone on the planet and use them as weapons. (When I said it was a lot like Possessor, I meant it.) Agent Drake, the protagonist of the comic, finds himself isolated inside a possessed asset while a rogue agent tries to take over his agency, giving him only 72 hours to get back into his own body. Writer Andy Diggle wrote an expansion of Kirkman and Silvestri’s original idea, and the comic ran for five issues from late December 2018 to April 2019. Here’s a trailer for the comic:

Possessor felt like a wildly original movie, but I suspect it was ultimately a small enough film that most audiences have still never heard of it and won’t immediately draw comparisons to it when this Hardcore movie is released. This movie feels like a much more action-oriented take on the sci-fi premise, though, so perhaps those comparisons will end up feeling surface-level anyway.

Wingard is staying very busy these days, attaching himself to a Face/Off sequel that he hopes will reunite John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, a live-action adaptation of the 1980s cartoon series ThunderCats, and a Godzilla vs. Kong sequel that may or may not end up being called Son of Kong. There’s no word where this film might be slotted into that schedule or how long it might take until we get to see it, but I’m curious to see how it turns out.

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