Not to be confused with the recent Joan Jett/Cherie Currie biopic starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, Marvel’s The Runaways is about a group of kids who discover not only that their parents are part of a murderous cult, but that they themselves have superpowers to help them fight back against their evil guardians. The story is deep and comes from Bryan K. Vaughan, who also gave us the acclaimed Y: The Last Man series, as well as doing a stint as a writer on Lost. This should be enough to get you excited for the project.

Production Weekly’s Twitter let us know today that The Runaways will be lensing from January until June of next year, giving it an early to mid-2012 release, maybe summer if they hold out for the season. This is another of Marvel’s properties that they’ll be putting in front of the camera while we hold out patiently for them to wrap up the Avengers saga.

The kids involved in The Runaways are teenagers so it could be interesting to see Marvel more openly appeal to that demographic and compete with the upcoming Twilight: Breaking Dawn faithful. Production is still a ways off, but attached director Peter Sollett will surely be raring to go before the start of the year. You can be sure that we'll have more on this as the extensive casting gets underway, but with SDCC starting up next week, that could be very soon.

Here’s the official synopsis from Marvel’s Wiki, but it may contain some spoilers so read at your own risk:

The teens who became the Runaways found that some family secrets are bigger than others when they witnessed their parents, part of a cabal known as the Pride, murdering a young girl during a secret sacrificial ritual. Running away from their homes, the group banded together and began a journey of discovery, both of their parents' origins and of their own inherited powers. Arsenic found she could control her time-traveling parents' dinosaur, which she named Old Lace; Sister Grimm took her mother's magical Staff of One, with which she could cast any spell, but only once; the mutant Bruiser found that with puberty came super strength; Lucy in the Sky learned that she was an alien with energy powers; Talkback took several of his mad scientist parents' weapons; however, Alex Wilder, possessing only his own natural genius, retained use of his real name.

Forced to fight their parents at various points, the group was even framed for the murder of the girl whom they had earlier witnessed their parents sacrificing. Taking an old abandoned mansion which they called the Hostel as their new home, the Runaways set about clearing their name. Breaking up a robbery, the group welcomed a new member, a teen named Topher who claimed his parents forced him to help them with their crimes. Topher, in actuality a vampire born at the turn of the 20th century, set about seducing both Sister Grimm and Lucy in the Sky, but was killed when he attempted to drink Lucy's solar-irradiated alien blood. The Pride then exposed his followers to sunlight, killing them as well.

Using their more legitimate connections the Pride convinced Cloak and Dagger to come to California and collect their kids. After a misunderstanding, most of the Runaways ended up inside of Cloak's cloak dimension, leaving only Bruiser and Arsenic to rescue them. Upon explaining their situation, the Runaways convinced Cloak and Dagger of their innocence, and the duo promised to call Captain America to help them, although their memories were erased by the Pride before they could do so. The discovery of the Hostel by the police, whom the Pride had in their pocket, forced the Runaways to take the battle to their parents once more.

Discovering their parents served ancient beings known as the Gibborim who intended to re-create the Earth using the Pride as their catalysts and repopulators, the Runaways found the location where the Pride intended to sacrifice the soul of the girl they had murdered. Confronting their parents, the Runaways were shocked when Alex Wilder revealed his alliance with the Pride. Despite the defection, the Runaways were able to free the young girl's soul, causing the Gibborim to attack and apparently slay Alex and the Pride. Narrowly escaping, the group met Captain America, who had them placed in foster homes and orphanages; Bruiser was enrolled at the Xavier Institute.

Missing each other, the group again ran away and agreed to stay together as Runaways. Rescuing Arsenic's dinosaur, Old Lace, and taking Talkback's parents' giant vehicle, the Leapfrog, the group set out, determined to make something more of their new family. With the death of the Pride, Los Angeles' 'protected' status was ended, and super-villains began flock to the unprotected city. With no one else to do the job, the Runaways returned to L.A. to protect it. They have fought Swarm, theWrecking Crew, and, perhaps in their biggest struggle to date, a new Pride formed of Alex Wilder's online friends, led by a resurrected Geoffrey Wilder.