Director David Fincher (Zodiac, Fight Club) will head up a new animated film based on the comics magazine Heavy Metal, according to Daily Variety. The Paramount Pictures release will be made up of eight or nine individual segments, each handled by a different director. Other helmers will include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman, who own and publishes Heavy Metal, and Blur Studios’ Tim Miller (Gopher Broke).
Released theatrically in 1981, the original Heavy Metal film was an animated anthology of stories of dark fantasy, science-fiction, eroticism and horror. The voice cast included Harold Ramis and SCTV alumni John Candy, Eugene Levy and Joe Flaherty. The pic became a cult favorite and was reissued in limited release by Columbia Pictures in 1996. The sequel Heavy Metal 2000, based on Eastman’s graphic novel The Melting Pot, debuted on home video eight years ago.
An American version of the French publication M’tal Hurlant (Howling Metal), Heavy Metal was first published in 1977. Over the years, the magazine introduced the works of such American artists and writers as H.R. Giger, Terrance Lindall, Robert Silverberg and Harlan Ellison.
In addition to directing segments, Fincher, Eastman and Miller will serve as producers. Fincher has also been tapped by Paramount to direct an adaptation of the Charles Burns graphic novel Black Hole. Miller is writing, directing and producing a feature-length version of his CG-animated Blur short Rockfish.
