Seth Rogen has been part of numerous memes, and now he is developing a movie centered on one.
Lionsgate is in final negotiations to pick up Memetic, a horror thriller about a killer meme, that Rogen will produce along with partners Evan Goldberg and James Weaver via their Point Grey banner. Boom! Studios’ Ross Richie and Stephen Christy are also producing.
Mattson Tomlin, the rising scribe who co-wrote The Batman with Matt Reeves, is writing the adaptation.
Memetic is based on the Boom! comic of the same name, which explored the idea of a weaponized meme. A meme known as the Good Time Sloth becomes a viral sensation, and half a day later everyone from the President to the coffee shop barista become “screamers,” succumbing to a murderous rage.
Some prove to be immune to the meme and the story centers on a young man, color-blind, who tries to navigate society’s fall into an apocalypse as he tried to find his boyfriend.
James Tynion IV, the hot writer who recently took over DC’s flagship Batman comic and who is also behind the buzzy Boom! horror comic Something Is Killing the Children, wrote Memetic. Eryk Donovan was the artist for the book that was nominated for the 2015 GLAAD Award for outstanding comic.
Josh Fagan is shepherding for Point Grey while Meredith Wieck and Scott O’Brien oversee for Lionsgate. Boom!’s Adam Yoelin will exec produce.
Memetic marks the second comic-based project that Point Grey and Tomlin have teamed on. Last week, Amazon won a bidding war for Fear Agent, an adaptation of a Rick Remender comic. Tomlin is writing while Point Grey is producing along with Matt Tolmach Productions.
Boom! recently set up horror title Unsound, with David F. Sandberg attached to direct, at Netflix following a multi-studio bidding war.
Tomlin is repped by Grandview and Goodman Schenkman.
