James Wan To Produce Dylan Dog Television Series
by Erik Amaya
The proposed Dylan Dog TV series got a recent boost on Monday with word of a new producer joining the team: Aquaman‘s James Wan.
Slashfilm reports the prolific horror-meister and his company, Atomic Robot, have joined an effort to bring Tiziano Sclavi’s famous comic book character to the screen. First published in 1986, the series follows “nightmare investigator” Dylan Dog. Forever dressed in a red shirt, black jacket, and blue jeans, he faces down the absurd horrors of London alongside sidekick Groucho — a man playing at being Groucho Marx — and with the occasional help of his old Scotland Yard superior Inspector Bloch. Artist Claudio Villa, who helped outline the visual look of the series, based Dylan’s face on actor Rupert Everett, who would later play Scalvi’s Italian analogue of Dylan Dog, Francesco Dellamorte, in the film Cemetery Man. Despite the change in name and locale, Everett wore Dylan’s trademark costume throughout the picture.
Dylan himself would make an appearance on film with 2011’s Dylan Dog: Dead of Night. Legends of Tomorrow‘s Brandon Routh starred as the titular character while Sam Huntington played a non-Groucho sidekick due to trademark issues. It was a box office disappointment and something of a departure from the comics’ surreal tone and black humor. Publisher Sergio Bonelli Editore eventually bought the Dylan Dog rights back from a US company a few years ago and set out to make a television series in August of 2018 themselves to insure, as they put it at the time, that “the essence of our characters and our properties remain intact.”
“Dylan Dog is truly one of my favorite comic books ever,” said Wan in a statement. “I was first introduced to the Nightmare Investigator back in high school by my European friends. And though I didn’t understand the foreign text, I easily understood the story through the beautiful artwork, and its loving references to the horror genre. I’m excited to team with Sergio Bonelli Editore to bring this to life on screen.”
The ten-episode series is still in search of a broadcast or streaming home, but one imagines the inclusion of Wan and Atomic Robot will help make Dylan Dog an easier sell.
