About a month ago, Mark Hamill announced during a panel in Los Angeles that he would be making his directorial debut based on one of his comics series. While he was unable to confirm what material he would be adapting, speculation was that it would be The Black Pearl, a five part series that Hamill wrote in the mid-1990s about a vigilante and the sensationalized journalism that surrounds him. He promised more details would come out during the Cannes Film Festival, and guess what's currently happening in Southern France?
Variety has now confirmed that the project Hamill will be directing is The Black Pearl and that it will be financed by Berkeley Square Films. According to Hamill, he has been fielding interest in the project for years now, but studios wanted to turn it into a "megabudget comic book movie," something he had no interest in doing. The film will be the first feature directed by Hamill, who directed the direct-to-DVD mockumentary Comic Book: The Movie back in 2004.
To reiterate what I said when the story about the movie first broke, aside from needing a title change this project has a lot of potential. Its message is one that certainly has relevance in today's society and Hamill is so beloved by the geek community that he already has a leg up (Luke Skywalker always gets bonus points). It's also nice to see him take charge of a project based on his own source material. All one has to do is look at the critical acclaim garnered by Kick-Ass to see how successful an adaptation can be when its creator is watching its development.
