'Sleeper' awakens with newbie scribe

Rookie scribe Brad Inglesby has been hired to adapt the DC Comics/Wildstorm graphic novel "Sleeper," which Warner Bros. picked up in August.

Tom Cruise, though not formally attached, reportedly has shown interest in the material.

Sam Raimi and Josh Donen are producing through their Stars Road Entertainment company. Gregory Noveck will oversee for DC, and Matt Reilly and Matt Milam will oversee for Warner Bros.

Written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips, "Sleeper" is a high-tech noir series published from 2003-05 that puts superheroes in a stylish, hard-boiled crime saga not unlike "The Departed." The protagonist, Holden Carver, is a spy stranded in a criminal organization but in possession of a superhuman imperviousness to pain derived from an alien artifact.

In March, Inglesby, who is repped by WMA and Energy Entertainment, sold his thriller spec "The Low Dweller," with Leonardo DiCaprio and Ridley Scott attached, to Relativity Media after a bidding war. (partialdiff)