Paramount Pictures has acquired the superhero comic book "Captain Thunder and Blue Bolt" for producer Joe Wizan to develop and produce under his Wizan/Black banner, sources confirmed.
The deal was hammered out by agent Daniel Ostroff, who represents both the comic's creators, the husband/wife team of Roy and Dann Thomas, and Heroic Publishing of Long Beach.
"Captain Thunder and Blue Bolt" is one of the few superhero stories that weaves an action story with family relationships, in that both father and son have super powers.
"This is one generation gap that could level a city," Roy Thomas said yesterday from his home in South Carolina. "We wanted to play up the generation gap aspect. We have lots of chances to play up real situations."
Par's acquisition of "Thunder and Bolt" marks the first sale for the 5 -year-old Heroic Publishing of one of their comic book characters and continues the trend of turning comic book titles into movies.
"Comic books have always been a good source to mine because the comic book creators write what are essentially very visual movies on paper," Ostroff said.
"Their aim is to entertain their audience with a high level of excitement and thrills on every page."
Although Thomas, a well-known figure in the comic book world, has screenplay credits, including Ralph Bakshi's animated "Fire and Ice," neither he nor his wife will be writing the script for Wizan, sources said.
Thomas also was script consultant on "Conan the Barbarian" and received a story credit on "Conan the Destroyer."
He was also editor-in-chief of the "Conan" comic books and also Marvel Comics.
Thomas has written for many comic books, including "Silver Surfer,""X Men, ""Doctor Strange" and "Justice League."
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