Fox Buying Graphic Novel 'Rust' With 'Devil Wears Prada,' 'X-Men: First Class' Alums Attached

With less than a week to go before Comic-Con, Fox is negotiating to snap up the Archaia graphic novel Rust, with Aline Brosh McKenna attached to write and Simon Kinberg to produce.

The upcoming graphic novel made the rounds to all the studios earlier this week, generating considerable heat. Warners, where it was taken in by writer-producer Akiva Goldsman, was said to be an early contender but that Fox execs moved aggressively to make Rust theirs.

Rust, from Archaia, is described by the company as a “high-octane adventure set in the prairie lands of an unknown time. Life on the Taylor family farm was difficult enough before Jet Jones crashes into the barn, chased by a giant decommissioned war robot! Oldest on Roman Taylor struggles to keep his family¹s small farm afloat as the area heals from a devastating world war. While the rest of his family may not trust the mysterious boy with the jetpack, Roman believes the secrets of Jet’s past may be the key to their survival."

Kinberg is a writer-producer whose most recent work was X-Men: First Class and he was a writer-producer on This Means War, the McG-directed romance action movie starring Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine.

McKenna, who wrote The Devil Wears Prada and the recently wrapped We Bought a Zoo, is new to the producing sphere and is exec producing I Don’t Know How She Does It, a Sarah Jessica Parker comedy she also wrote.

(As an aside, the deal falls coincidentally just a couple of weeks after the 20th anniversary of jet-packed-themed comic book movie The Rocketeer, a movie that is well-remembered by a certain segment of execs. Who knows, we may well see a resurgence of rocket-pack heroes in Hollywood.)