A visit to Aspen
Went down to the Aspen MLT offices to catch up on all things Fathom and see the work the artists are doing for the upcoming season.
Frank Mastromauro and Peter Steigerwald showed me a stack of Mike Turner’s original Fathom pencil art, including the very first appearance of Aspen Matthews.
There’s something uncanny about a physical drawing, pencil on paper. It’s as close as we can come to touching one of those fleeting moments when you imagine something new for the first time. Something that might change your life, and other people’s.
It was sobering to realize that the stack is finite.
Fathom
It’s official: I’m writing a film adaptation of Fathom, the comic book series created by the late, great Michael Turner. Megan Fox is attached to star.
The first time I read the book about ten years ago, my immediate reaction was “I wish I’d thought of that!” (It’s about a young girl who discovers that she belongs to an ocean-dwelling race that has existed secretly alongside humans for thousands of years.)
At that time, the film rights were with James Cameron’s company, they already had a writer, and Ubisoft and I were in early discussions about the project that would become Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. So I put Fathom out of my mind… for ten years.
Last October, out of the blue, I got a call from Fox Atomic saying they were starting over with Fathom and would I be interested in writing the screenplay? Were they kidding? I pitched my take to Fox execs Zak Kadison and Eric Lieb and producers Peter Safran, Steve Bessen, Brian Austin Green, and Frank Mastromauro. They liked it, so I got to pitch it again to a slightly larger group including Megan and studio head Debbie Liebling. (If that sounds like an intimidating roomful of people, it kind of is.)
Now the news is out, and I’m incredibly stoked. Megan is a Michael Turner fan from way back and was instrumental in making this project happen. She’s perfectly cast as Aspen Matthews.
Watch this space for updates. It may take a while till the next one, though. I need to go write now.
