Hollywood Gang jumps in 'Ocean'

'Ronin' duo to option novel

By MICHAEL FLEMING

Hollywood Gang's Gianni Nunnari and Nick Wechsler have teamed to option screen rights to "Ocean," a graphic novel by Warren Ellis that is a template for a big-scale alien thriller.

Nunnari and Wechsler will produce, and Craig J. Flores is exec producing.

Story concerns the thousands of coffins containing angel-like bodies, and a giant weapon of mass destruction, discovered by a scientist on Jupiter's ice-covered moon Europa. A U.N. weapons inspector sent to investigate uncovers a chilling secret about the history of humanity.

Nunnari produced "300," based on the Frank Miller graphic novel, and he recently teamed with Wechsler to produce the Miller title "Ronin" at Warner Bros., with Sylvain White ("Stomp the Yard") directing.

Wechsler called the graphic novel "an alien thriller with a fresh take on the origin of man."