Brad Ingelsby, Sam Raimi, Tom Cruise Team for Sleeper

Posted by dominie in Comics, Films, News on October 19th, 2008

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. has signed newcomer Brad Ingelsby (The Honeyfields) to pen the script for DC Comics/WildStorm’s Sleeper comic book for the big screen.

In August, Tom Cruise was loosely attached to join Sam Raimi in developing the adaptation. Cruise’s involvement, though not officially signed, has seemingly set the project on the fast track for a 2011 release date and Warner Bros. is hoping to turn Sleeper into a new studio franchise. Cruise will rumored to star, while Raimi and Josh Donen will produce the film through their Stars Road Entertainment banner.

In regards to Ingelsby, early this year in March, he made his first script sale, The Low Dweller, a thriller feature to Relativity Media for $500,000 against $1 million, which Ridley Scott is now attached to direct and Leonardo DiCaprio will star.

The original Sleeper comic, written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips, “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 series follows the protagonist, Holden Carver (a.k.a The Conductor) a spy placed undercover in a criminal organization led by TAO, a WildC.A.T.s villain. Carver is fused with an alien artifact that causes him to be impervious to pain and have the ability to pass on the specialty to other through skin contact. When Carver’s only real link to the outside, John Lynch, falls into a coma, Carver’s life spirals into an internal struggle between right and wrong while he rises through the ranks under TAO’s organization.